Spotlight

For 10 years I attended Catholic catechism classes weekly for three months of each year. With my class, I made my First Communion and eventually my Confirmation. While I have always believed in God and treasure a faith I can fall back on when needed, I felt that there was always something missing. I wasn’t quite as interested or affiliated with the religion as I felt I should have been. You (and I) would think that after 10 years I would have developed a stronger connection—but, I never did. And shortly after my Confirmation, maybe around age 17, I stopped going to church altogether. There was nothing that necessarily turned me off from Catholicism, yet there was nothing that particularly drew me in.

With all due respect to those who practice and cherish Catholicism, yet with brutal honesty, I am no longer disheartened by my lack of religious spirituality after watching the 2015 Oscar-nominated film Spotlight. Director Tom McCarthy brilliantly portrays the true story of four Boston Globe journalists who dedicated a year of their lives to uncovering the Catholic Church’s cover-up, justification, and dismissal of numerous cases of child abuse by various priests. Despite the shocking and immensely disturbing discoveries made by the Spotlight reporters, actors Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Brian D’Arcy portrayed their characters with heightened professionalism, highlighting the journalists’ battle to ethically, truthfully, and professionally tell Boston what they deserved to know.

Unfortunately, what Boston and the rest of the nation deserved to know was, and still is difficult, to accept. For many, an institution that they dedicated their lives and faith to was transformed from something beautifully powerful to something sinfully betraying. And for many others, the Church’s mistake was horrific, but eventually overlooked in hopes of maintaining or restoring faith.

For me, a religion I often wished I spiritually connected with more became a religion that I am okay with lacking attachment to. The truth about the many hidden cases of child abuse within the Catholic Church has not caused me to hate the religion, the hierarchy who devote themselves to it, or the many people who believe in it. However, it has caused me to think about the Church and religion differently than I have in the past. Rather than thinking about religion as something I wished I identified more with, it is now something I think of as extremely complex and very personal. And though I wish I didn’t, I partially associate it (solely in regards to the child abuse incidences) with hypocrisy and betrayal. Being someone who never held immensely strong faith in the religion, it is hard to ignore the truth and look past the copious innocent, young lives that were, at least momentarily, destroyed. More importantly, it is hard to look past the way that many priests—figures of holiness that so many children and adults alike looked to for guidance and spiritual strength—made so many young, beautiful children believe that what they had done was okay, that what they had done should be left unsaid.

And yet, as I said, religion is complex. Maybe I do still envy those who have found strength and love in the Lord and the Catholic Church and everything amazing that it has to offer. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’ll never know. Perhaps it’s better that way—perhaps it’s safer.