The Hollywood formula film Spotlight, which celebrates The Boston Globe for its campaign to bring down the Catholic Church by revealing that hundreds of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston were molested by perverted priests—who are always carefully described as pedophiles and sexual abusers, rather than what they actually were, homosexual predators—opened today in Boston and throughout the nation.
Predictably, the intrepid reporters of Morrissey Boulevard are admiringly portrayed as doggedly seeking the truth, which is shamefully concealed by a powerful and corrupt Catholic Church. This tendentious exercise in cinematic propaganda omits a few salient facts, however.
It doesn’t tell you that the pursuit of truth was the last thing anybody at the Globe had on their mind. It doesn’t tell you that prior to the 2002 revelations, the Globe waged a thirty year war against Catholicism, maligning the Catholic Faith, its leaders, and its moral teachings, opposing the constitutional rights of Catholics, and trying to destroy the political career of anyone in public life who supported those teachings and defended those rights. Nor does the movie tell you how the Globe hired an excommunicated ex-priest to write scores of columns blaming the Church for all the crimes of history.
If you are interested in finding out the truth about The Boston Globe and its hostile coverage of Catholicism, Catholic author David F. Pierre, Jr. has written a splendid little book entitled SINS OF THE PRESS: The Untold Story of the Boston Globe’s Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church.
Dave Pierre not only documents the Globe’s longstanding, vitriolic and pervasive institutional animus against the Church, but exposes the fact that the Globe, for decades, promoted the very same behaviors, pathologies, and, in some cases, individuals, which it later condemned the Catholic Church for tolerating. Pierre also recounts all the distortions, misrepresentations, calculated omissions, and outright deceptions perpetrated by the Globe in its campaign to discredit the moral authority and destroy the public influence of its historic adversary, the Catholic Church.
SINS OF THE PRESS is thoroughly researched, meticulously documented, well organized, hard hitting, and eminently readable. Although short (about 170 pages), it is an impressive piece of scholarship and a valuable contribution to American Catholic history.
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts is pleased to give it our wholehearted endorsement. As an organization committed to combating anti-Catholicism, the League also wishes to extend its thanks to Dave Pierre for his tireless work in constructing this detailed historical narrative and record of hypocrisy and anti-Catholic bigotry in New England’s most powerful media institution.
It is always inspiring, when, in this hostile culture, you encounter a Catholic with the courage to fight back!
