Having once been molested at a very young age by the coach of a swim and dive team I once was a part of, I came to understand just how much pain, horror, and agony comes afterwards from something as terrible as this. With that being said, I was reminded of much of what I went through all those years ago when I saw a movie named “Spotlight” the other day.
Spotlight is a 2015 film about The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigative team that uncovered the decades long pattern of sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in Massachusetts, as well as the Boston Archdiocese efforts to keep it concealed.
Watching the efforts that the Catholic Church went through to settle the sexual abuse cases outside of court for years was hard enough, knowing the ones that truly got hurt would never find peace through any of those small cash settlements the church gave them. But then seeing the Church also shuffled those abusive priests around to other churches in other dioceses for years and knowing those patterns only repeated themselves with more children was even harder to watch.
The work that the “Spotlight” team went through to bring all this to light was most certainly a daunting effort with so many hurdles faced along the way. This was depicted quite well in the movie itself by Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James, John Slattery, and Liev Schreiber.
The one thing that I related to the most throughout this entire movie was the testimonies that many of the abused gave. In fact, I was moved to tears more than once as I heard them talk about being paid attention to by a priest and initially how good it felt. This was how I eventually got molested as well, because no one ever paid much attention to me as a kid, that was until this middle-aged man saw how broken and confused I was in life and began offering me what I so needed and wanted. But tragically, I fell prey to him and suffered for more than a decade afterwards because of it, no different than all those they depicted in this movie who were molested by priests.
Ironically, I once met a priest almost a decade ago now who told me of some of the horrors he saw back before all this sexual abuse came to light. He said there used to be “boy parties” where innocent children were passed around between priests and bishops for sexual favors. It was really challenging for me to hear this, knowing what I went through. I can only imagine what it was like for all those children to have such innocent faith in God and then have that be stifled out by the actions of the closest thing they knew to God at the time, which was those priests or bishops.
The sad reality for any of those who get sexually abused at a very young ago by someone else is that many never come back from it. Some end up killing themselves, others choose prostitution for a living, while many succumb to a life of drug and alcohol abuse. Thankfully, God led me away from all of those dark paths to become strong enough, not only to talk about what I went through to help others heal, but also to be able to sit through this movie that in many ways was like reliving my own tragic experience.
So in the end, I’m very grateful for the team of people who created the movie Spotlight because I believe it can and will be healing somehow for those who ever suffered from sexual abuse. I hope you may take the time to go see this film, as it truly is phenomenal and most certainly will garner favor during awards season…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
