A detailed list of films, documentaries, and television series–the writers, producers and subjects’ harrowing testimonies–that dare to TELL the unspeakable stories:
FILMS
Spotlight
Spotlight is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The film follows The Boston Globe‘s “Spotlight” team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, and its investigation into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests. It is based on a series of stories by the Spotlight team that earned The Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Here, priest-abuse survivor and whistleblower, Phil Saviano, in just one of many powerful scenes from the film, tells how it, “this thing,” happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH4E6mdxZDw
Why does this matter? It, priest abuse, happened to my late husband who wrote in his suicide note, “Jenny, it was not you. This thing has been in me for years. It was time to come out.”
Dead Poets Society
Here is one scene that I often share with students in my college classrooms, one that sends a powerful message to us all, “What will your verse be?”: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-mozilla-002&hsimp=yhs-002&hspart=mozilla&p=Dead+Poets+Society+Huddle+Up+on+YOuTube&guccounter=1#id=1&vid=ac5079099bc62ad377a4d5ba78036f5f&action=view
DOCUMENTARIES
‘Prey’: A documentary by Windsor director shines a light on sexual abuse by priests, April 16, 2019, from the SNAP website:
It’s a documentary that Windsorite director Matt Gallagher has been aspiring to create for about 15 years — and now, his film Prey about sexual abuse by Catholic priests will premiere at Hot Docs, Canada’s largest documentary film festival later this month.
The film focuses on one perpetrator in particular, Father William Hodgson “Hod” Marshall, a retired priest and teacher, who several years ago pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 16 boys and one girl at schools in Toronto, Sudbury and Windsor.
Featured in the film is Windsorite Patrick McMahon who, as a boy, fell victim to Marshall.
McMahon has been using his voice to speak out and protest in an effort to hold those within the church accountable.
“It’s something I feel passionately about….I will continue to speak out until people who cover this up are brought to justice,” he said.
He stressed he hopes the documentary will help make people aware these are not just crimes of the past.
“There are priests today who are still doing this. There are priests being investigated now. There are enablers covering this up,” he said.
“We all together have an obligation to make that stop.”
Watch the trailer here:
Deliver Us from Evil
Twist of Faith
NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
The Keepers
When They See Us
TED Talks
Why we need to talk about suicide | Mark Henick | TEDxToronto
jgrosvenor8
Aug 8, 2019, 2:08 pmYes! I’m amazed by the impact Spotlight has had on the whole priest abuse scandal. It truly busted open the locked vaults of secrecy and even lifted the lids off coffins. I am forever indebted to that team of journalists yet deeply troubled to discover this abuse happened to my late husband. It’s also shocking–disgusting, really–that Cardinal Law got promoted by the Vatican AFTER all that!
Tracy D
Jul 7, 2021, 9:12 pmI just finished reading A Widow’s Hunt for the Priest Who Preyed on Her Husband.
I am as – angry seems like such a paltry word for the tumult of feelings I have, but the only one I can come up with – about the lack of action taken to stop this situation, stop it completely and totally! I feel just as strongly about the military policing itself and for the most part, colleges too. Why are we willing to let these systems that want autonomy, but are obviously unable to curtail the sex crimes committed against young people, take matters into their own hands when atrocities happen, allowing them to mitigate the severity of the crimes or worse yet, cover it up. And even when allowed to be handles by civilian courts (Brock Turner as an example) young people that have been traumatized and brutalized are not only failed by systems that should support them, but can find themselves demonized as though their presence, which provided their rapist with the opportunity, is the cause of their pain and suffering. I can’t help but think that our system of putting people in absolute authority over others is to blame. It brings out the worst in already, for lack of a better word, “bad” people. I applaud you for continuing to put this out there, to get more people involved, to name names and put blame squarely where it belongs. I only hope that it makes enough people uncomfortable or frustrated or angry that something is ultimately done to stop it.