Spotlight, Shadows and Speaking Truth to Power.

In response to the release of the movie Spotlight we posted the Statement titled "Spotlight, Shadows and Speaking Truth to Power" today. We hope you will take a look and let us know if you have any questions. We have also pasted an excerpt below.

"You’re not going to see any superheroes in the new movie Spotlight. Well, at least not the kinds that wear capes or battle space aliens.

Nor are you going to see car chases, tidal waves, earth quakes or even people raising their voices very often.

And for a movie about the Boston Archdiocese child sexual abuse scandal, you’re not going to learn much about evidence-based solutions, or the most effective ways to raise healthy, vibrant children either.

But you will learn something very valuable, however, about how we prevent child sexual abuse from ever happening in the first place: we don’t allow it to exist in the dark, wrapped in secrets that are fostered by adults who are unable, or unwilling, to ask hard questions about what they know is happening right in front of them.

You will also learn that the heroes in Spotlight are the investigative journalists and brave citizens who stood up to a system that thrived on secrecy and intimidation.

If the role adults play in preventing child sexual abuse isn’t clear already, let us be clear here, now – preventing child sexual abuse is not the responsibility of children, it’s the responsibility of the adults who live in the neighborhoods and communities those children live in.

Those adults, all adults, all of us, have to be willing to face things that make us uncomfortable, and as we see in Spotlight, we also have to be willing to confront the institutions which prefer that such actions are ignored."