Abuse Victims Speak Out Following ‘Spotlight' Oscar Win

It was a huge and surprising win for a movie that has its foundation at the Boston Globe.

It was a huge and surprising win for a movie that has its foundation at the Boston Globe.

"Spotlight" won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and for the real people behind the movie characters, the win means much more than a gold statue.

Winning best picture at the Academy Awards, the film Spotlight shined a bright light on an issue sex abuse victim Alexa MacPherson knows intimately. She faced abuse from her priest, but as exciting as this moment was, it didn't offer her something she longs for more than anything.

"Not a sense of closure, at least not for me," said MacPherson, "It's a sense of being understood. And not being called a liar."

The movie is about the Boston Globe's Spotlight investigation into the child sex abuse scandal in the Boston Catholic Church.

NECN spoke with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Walter Robinson, who was part of the Spotlight team that exposed the sex abuse scandal involving clergy. In spotlight, Robinson is played by actor Michael Keaton.

Robinson hopes with "Spotlight's" now global fame, swift action will be taken in the Catholic Church.

"Perhaps it will move the church to move more quickly to Institute the reforms to make sure that this kind of Wholesale abuse of children doesn't happen again," said Robinson.

But as journalists, attorneys, and now movies fight for the justice of victims, victims themselves live a reality none of us can understand.

MacPherson no longer goes to the Catholic Church and doesn't believe in its doctrine regardless of court wins and now Academy Awards. At its core, she will never be able to understand what happened and why it was allowed for so long.

"How can you follow a doctrine that allows abuse of children and then covers it up and doesn't hold the perpetrators liable in any way shape or form?" said MacPherson.

NECN also spoke with Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney for more than a dozen victims and portrayed in the movie Spotlight. He says with this kind of international attention on the scandal, the Vatican has to do something about it.

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