Extraordinary Screening of 'Spotlight' By Vatican Panel - Los Angeles Times

Extraordinary Screening of 'Spotlight' By Vatican Panel - Los Angeles Times

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Vatican panel kicks off meeting on sexual abuse by watching 'Spotlight'

Los Angeles Times - February 4, 2016

By Tom Kington

Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse gathered Thursday for a private screening of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-nominated film about abuse by Boston priests, even as Pope Francis came under fire for failing to act on the crisis.

The extraordinary screening was held on the eve of a three-day meeting by the commission, and was shown in the same church residence in central Rome where Francis — then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — stayed before his election as pope in 2013.

“The film is extremely worrying about the cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church, and I think it would be a good moment for the pope to see it,” said Peter Saunders, a British anti-abuse campaigner who is a member of the commission. He was abused by a Catholic priest as a child growing up in London.

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