The movie Spotlight sheds light on the sexual abuse that goes on behind the “holy doors” of the Catholic Church. 

It tells the true story of The Boston Globe journalists who exposed widespread child abuse, and the systemic cover-ups by the Catholic Church in Boston. The slogan on one of the movie-posters says: “Read between the lies”!

“The newspaper set off a global wave of investigations that found similar patterns at dioceses around the world... victims and their advocates contend that abuse is ongoing” (Reuters, 5 November). At the end of the movie, there is a long list of Catholic dioceses all over the world where sexual abuse by priests occurred.

This applies to Malta too. When three Maltese clerics were accused of sexual abuse at St Joseph's Institute, the local media reported that there were over 60 such other cases being investigated. We never heard of them anymore.

The Malta Independent should investigate those cases. Like the Boston Globe, it should not be afraid “to examine institutions once seen as off limits”. To quote a Spotlight poster, “Break the story. Break the silence.”

  

John Guillaumier

St Julian's