Bill Donohue comments on remarks made by “Spotlight” stars on the occasion of the SAG Awards Saturday night:
“Spotlight,” which is about the Boston Globe’s coverage of the abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston, has given rise to a steady stream of wild statements about the Catholic Church. The latest irresponsible comment was made at the SAG Awards by star Mark Ruffalo. “Many of the archdioceses that have had molestations happening in them still haven’t released the names of the priests who are known to be child molesters and rapists.”
Between 1950 and 2002, 4 percent of Catholic priests had an allegation made against them; only half of the allegations were substantiated. Moreover, between 2005 and 2014, an average of 8.4 credible accusations were made against roughly 40,000 priests. Ergo, it is a monumental smear to tar the entire Catholic Church. That is what many pundits, and some of those associated with “Spotlight,” are doing.
If Ruffalo were sincerely interested in this issue, he would admit that the public knows more about the names of guilty priests than it does the names of guilty Hollywood employees. Child rape is hardly unknown in Tinseltown. But when an attempt was made to bring that story to the big screen, studio executives tried to crush it. Just ask Amy Berg, the director of the documentary, “An Open Secret.” They tried to censor her. She persevered, but the real story here is the way the Hollywood elite went out of its way to derail her account.
Aside from Berg and a few others, no one in Hollywood wants to discuss the way kids are being sexually abused there. This is all the more astonishing when we consider that the sexual molestation of youngsters in Hollywood is not something that happened between 1965 and 1985—the height of the priestly sexual abuse scandal—it is happening now.
Contact Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road Films: tortenberg@openroadfilms.com
