A Cold Shower for a Spotlight Oscar Hangover

The film "Spotlight" won the Academy Award for Best Picture on February 28, 2016. Since then journalist JoAnn Wypijewski has debunked it as a script for moral panic.

February 12, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

[ Note from Father MacRae: I should have been more attentive in explaining this post this week.  It is not so much a reprint as a restoration.  A noted journalist had written a wonderful piece about the "Spotlight" film's Academy Award for Best Picture nine years ago.  The writer, JoAnn Wypijewski, heralded an entirely new view of the film, which caused me to want to rewrite this post. ]

For some purveyors of journalism in America, the standard for modern news media seems to come down to “whoever screams longest and loudest is telling the truth.” Taking a position against a tidal wave of “availability bias” — a phenomenon I once described in a Catalyst article, “Due Process for Accused Priests” — might get a writer shouted down in a blast of hysteria masked as journalism.

But that may be changing. A post I wrote a few years ago, “The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy on the Cover of Newsweek,” a story that exposes a Catholic sex abuse fraud, has generated an unexpected response. At this writing, it has been shared thousands of times on social media, and has drawn readers by the thousands every day since it was posted.

There is nothing in that post, however, that screams out drama from the rooftops. If anything, it is subtle, reasoned, and unemotional. I am sometimes criticized for telling important stories without much emotional hype. Sometimes my friends become irritated with my lack of ranting and raving, but I must come down on the side of rational discourse when I write.

That lesson in the difference between responsible journalism and moral panic has been driven home again. I have had to add a few names to my short list of “News Media Spinal Columns.” Some writers exemplify courage and integrity by rationally exposing important stories despite a scandal-hungry news media that prefers moral panic to moral truths. Some have pushed back against that tide admirably, and though the list is short, today I have to add the name of another journalist with a spinal column.

On Sunday evening, February 28, 2016 I opted for Downton Abbey on PBS instead of the Academy Awards. Like most PBS productions, Downton Abbey had no commercial breaks so I did not switch over for even a peek at that annual diversity-challenged nod to Hollywood narcissism known as the Oscars.

I was not at all surprised to learn that “Spotlight” won the Oscar for Best Picture, its sole award out of six nominations. It is a sign of Oscar’s elitist finger on the pulse of common humanity that only two percent of viewers thought this was “Best Picture” in a USA Today study of exit interviews.

JoAnn Wypijewski has a very different take, not so much on the film itself, but on the integrity, of the story behind it and its damage to the art of journalism as rational reporting gave way to emotion. I cannot tell you how disappointing it was to read a review by Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online who surrendered reasoned journalism right in paragraph one:

“I cried watching that movie. I looked around and saw sorrow. I couldn’t help wondering if someone around me had been hurt by someone who professed to be a man of God.”

“But, hey, lighten up. It’s just a movie,” wrote two reviewers in the The New York Times (which, by the way, owned The Boston Globe during its 2002 Spotlight Team investigation). “And they don’t give an Oscar for telling the truth.”

CounterPunch

On the day after the Oscars, at least five people sent me messages with a link foreboding, “You Need to See This!” Each warned that I am mentioned extensively in a controversial article by JoAnn Wypijewski at CounterPunch, a left-leaning news site that lives up to its name. Entirely unaccustomed to being treated justly by the media of the left in all this, my first thoughts on the article were not happy ones. Then the final message we checked was from the author herself with a link to “Oscar Hangover Special: Why’ ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film”:

“Fr. MacRae, I suspect you will think this intemperate… but then being in prison has given you an expansive view of polite company. I wrote this [see link] on the heels of the Oscars. I think you will like some of it, at least.”

I had no input into this article and no prior awareness of it. It does not represent my point of view at all, but rather is written solely from the point of view of the public record, seen through a fair and just set of journalistic eyes. The article was read once to me via telephone, and my knee jerk reaction was to keep it to myself. Then it was printed and sent to me, and I have since read it carefully twice. It’s tough stuff, and it made me grimace more than once, but mostly for its brutal honesty.

On first hearing the article, I have to admit that I didn’t much like being thrown together with the story of Father Paul Shanley, a notorious Boston priest with a long history of ecclesiastical rebellion. I suspect this is what the author meant by prison giving me “an expansive view of polite company.” I guess she understands that in some other circumstance, I may not choose to stand next to a lightning rod in a perfect storm.

But I know and admit that my gag reflex of umbrage was unjust, as I know that the case against Paul Shanley was unjust. He was tried not based on evidence of a real crime, but solely on the basis of his reputation. That was the only vehicle in which an utterly unbelievable, scientifically unsupportable claim of repressed and recovered memory could have been sold to an otherwise rational set of jurors.

First, throughout the 1970s, The Boston Globe, celebrated Paul Shanley as a notorious, pro-gay, in-the-Church’s-face “Street Priest.” Then, when it better suited the agenda of editors, the Globe turned on him. Shanley was tried in the pages of the Globe before he set foot in any court of law. He was sacrificed to a story that is not even plausible, and in its telling, journalistic integrity was sacrificed as well.

“Let That Sink In”

Paul Shanley stood for and did all manner of things that on their face were seen by some as dishonorable and disrespectful of his priesthood and his faith. But he was not on trial for those things. He was on trial for very specific offenses for which there was no evidence whatsoever beyond his reputation. All objective observers who look past his personal morality long enough to see the facts conclude that he was innocent of the crimes for which he was then in prison at age 84. We don’t have to like him to see that the Shanley trial was a sham.

Ms. Wypijewski’s CounterPunch juxtaposition of all this with the story of my own trial and imprisonment was jarring at best, but only because I have lived under the cloud of false witness for so long that to see it again in print assails me. The author’s revelation that this was all driven by the hysteria of moral panic surrounding the very idea of priestly abusers, and not evidence — for there was no evidence — drove the accusations, drove the trial, drove the media coverage, and drove me into prison. “MacRae got sixty-seven years for refusing to lie,” she wrote. “Let that sink in.”

The truth is that most of you now reading this have already let that sink in while others, including others in the Church, have settled for moral panic. This is why the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, Publisher and Editor of First Things magazine, wrote that my imprisonment “reflects a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.” This is why I need you to share this post and the CounterPunch article linked at the end.

Otherwise very reasonable Catholics on both the left and right have used the scandal of accused priests for their own agendas and ends with no regard for evidence, for justice, or for the most fundamental rights of their priests. The blind, self-righteous judgment of this “voice of the faithful” was the soil in which moral panic grew. Let that sink in, too.

The news media has done the same, and JoAnn Wypijewski has documented this masterfully. What The Boston Globe did was not journalism. It came as no surprise, in the years to follow the Spotlight revelations, that the Globe’s owner, The New York Times, became desperate to sell it. Several years ago the Globe was purchased by John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox. The New York Times let the Globe go for less than seven cents on the dollar on their original purchase price of $1.1 billion. It was sold by the Times for $70 million. Bottom line: The Boston Globe is dying. The Catholic Church is not.

Globe to shutter Crux site, shift BetaBoston
by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, Casting the Second Stone2016

The Boston Globe said Friday that it will shut down Crux, the newspaper’s online publication devoted to news and commentary on the Roman Catholic Church. Crux will halt publication on April 1, and several employees will be laid off.

In a memo sent to Globe employees Friday, Globe editor Brian McGrory wrote “we’re beyond proud of the journalism and the journalists who have produced it, day after day, month over month, for the past year and a half.” But McGrory added, “We simply haven’t been able to develop the financial model of big-ticket, Catholic-based advertisers that was envisioned when we launched Crux back in September 2014.”

McGrory said that the Crux site will be handed over to associate editor and columnist John Allen, a veteran reporter on Catholic affairs. McGrory said that Allen “is exploring the possibility of continuing it in some modified form, absent any contribution from the Globe.” Crux editor Teresa Hanafin will stay in the newsroom, probably at bostonglobe.com, the paper’s online home.

Casting the Second Stone

In “Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write On the Ground?,” I described the limits that the Hebrew Scriptures imposed on the process of accusing, judging, and destroying our fellow human beings. Only with evidence and witnesses, and there had to be at least two, could the first stone be cast according to the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 17:17). Only then could the mob be justified in joining in.

But in the creation of a moral panic, such as that which Hollywood recently endorsed at the Academy Awards, no such limits on public stoning by the mob are deemed necessary. The Laws of God are not to be found in the credits of a Hollywood production, and for many in modern Western Culture, Hollywood is now the final arbiter of truth and justice. Are you really prepared to accept a lecture on morality and justice taught by the news media with an endorsement from Hollywood? Some — even among Catholic priests and bishops — have learned that the best way to avoid being targeted by a witch hunt is to join in with its inevitable stoning.

Regarding the CounterPunch article taken as a whole, JoAnn Wypjewski is wrong about one thing. I did not “like some of it, at least.” I liked all of it! I liked it not because it is comfortable to read — it is not — but because it is the truth, because it is written by a person whose integrity as a journalist took precedence over what those on her ideological side of the fence demand from her. I like it because very early on in the article she risked making herself a lightning rod for the media left by challenging its availability bias:

“I am astonished that, across the past few months, ever since ‘Spotlight’ hit theaters, otherwise serious left-of center people have peppered their party conversation with effusions that the film reflects a heroic journalism, the kind we all need more of… What editor Marty Baron and the Globe sparked with their 600 stories and their confidential tip line for grievances was not laudatory journalism but a moral panic, and unfortunately for those who are telling the truth, truth was its casualty.”

Writing for The Wall Street Journal recently, author Carol Tavris described the devastation typically left in the wake of a moral panic:

“How do you convey to the next generation the stupidity, the rush to judgment, the breathtaking cruelty, the self-righteousness, the ruined lives, that every hysterical epidemic generates? On the other hand, understanding a moral panic requires perspective-distance from the emotional heat of anger and anxiety.”

— “A Very Model Moral Panic,” WSJ.com, August 7, 2015

To date the CounterPunch article has been shared thousands of times on social media. This is of utmost importance because it lets all media know that this is an important story that has been neglected by the mainstream media.

I therefore implore you to share this post, and to read and share this important article by JoAnn Wypijewski: “Oscar Hangover Special: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film.”

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NOTE TO READERS: Father Gordon MacRae is now publishing an occasional article on X (formerly Twitter). His first article there is linked below. We invite our readers to follow him on X @TSWBeyond.

xAI Grok and Fr. Gordon MacRae on the True Origin of Covid-19

You may also like these recommended posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

The Anatomy of a Sex Abuse Fraud

The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul

Unjustly in Prison for 30 Years: A Collision of Fury and Faith

Cardinal Bernard Law on the Frontier of Civil Rights

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

After Eight Years in Exile Fr William Graham Is Credibly Innocent

Fr William Graham of the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota was falsely accused and cast out in 2016 after his bishop deemed a nearly 40-year-old claim to be “credible.”

May 1, 2024 by Fr William Graham with an Introduction by Fr Gordon MacRae.

“Now have salvation and power come … for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accused them day and night before God. They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”

— Revelation 12:10-11

From Fr Gordon MacRae: Some of our readers might have passed over my recent post, “Pop Stars and Priests: Michael Jackson and the Credible Standard.” Much more than the strange story of Michael Jackson, that post was really about the much stranger story of Catholic priests falsely accused. Commenter James Anderson wrote of it, “This article is the best ever on your false conviction.” The matter of falsely accused Catholic priests has received some increased attention of late, but not nearly enough to counter the vast media bias that grew and festered through news of the scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic priesthood since the moral panic of 2002.

In my post linked above, I wrote of a development in my diocese, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. A press release from the diocese has indicated that more names of long deceased priests have been added to a published list of the merely accused. The previous standard of “credibly accused” has now evolved to include everyone accused with no apparent investigation whatsoever. We published about the grave injustice posed by this practice in another post, “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List.”

Also in recent years, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has published a good deal about the rights of priests and why those rights must be defended within the Church. Another excellent source of commentary built upon justice is The Media Report hosted by writer David F. Pierre, Jr. Back in 2019, he sent a title and link into our Inbox: Two Falsely Accused Priests Fight Back and Win! In the matter of one priest in the Diocese of Duluth, MN, Dave Pierre summarized a development that caught my attention back then:

We are pleased to report that a Minnesota appeals court recently upheld a $13,500 jury award to Rev. William C. Graham after the jury found that an accuser had falsely accused him.

As we reported last year, the accuser was represented by the notorious law firm of Jeff Anderson, and Anderson's sleazy lawyer, Mike Finnegan, lied to the media that there was somehow a "split verdict" in the jury's decision.

But a woman on the jury wrote a letter blasting Finnegan's characterization of the verdict and added that there was "no proof" that any abuse occurred. Good for her.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a new trend. When folks lie to courts claiming they were abused by priests, the priests should countersue, naming names. Justice demands it.

The slowly evolving matter of justice for Father William Graham finally came to a conclusion just days ago when Father Graham’s removal from ministry was overturned by the Vatican for lack of any credible evidence. Father Graham has been restored as pastor to the very parish from which he was removed unjustly eight years ago, and exiled from any priestly ministry, barred from even identifying himself as a priest. It comes as a great and triumphant irony that Father William Graham is now restored as pastor of Saint Michael the Archangel Parish, a parish named to honor the Patron Saint of Justice. Here is Father Graham’s first homily upon his return sent to me just days ago.

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Father William Graham on the Road to Emmaus

Well, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted ... Thank you. I’ve been working on that line for the last 95 months.

The old gospel hymn describes what I see here today: “When all God’s children get together, what a time, what a time, what a time!” And what a wonderful sight this is to me: all of us together again around book and table, thanking God for the gift of Christ, remembering and celebrating that the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church. Vatican II teaches us that: “the Church has never failed to come together to celebrate the Paschal Mystery: reading those things ‘which were in all the scriptures concerning Him’ (Luke 24:27), celebrating the Eucharist in which ‘the victory and triumph of His death are again made present,’ and at the same time giving thanks ‘to God for His unspeakable gift’ (2 Cor. 9:15) in Christ Jesus, ‘in praise of His glory’ (Eph. 1:12), through the power of the Holy Spirit. To accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations.’

We are much like those disciples who, on the road to Emmaus, met Jesus. He was made known to them as He is made known to us: in the telling of the stories and in the breaking of the bread. Those disciples shared the agony of the passion and death of Jesus. We, too, have suffered as the Body of Christ, broken, but called to new life and renewed hope.

You and I have been through a terrible, traumatizing experience. I was falsely accused and denied both justice and mercy by our local Church. A number of folks have asked why I didn’t just quit and go away. That is not how justice is accomplished; it is not how we seek the Truth, who is Christ, and who will set us free. Doing the right thing is a demanding task. You know that. I have found the path to justice exhausting and worrisome and, let me say, very, very, very expensive. All that we have is our human dignity, and it is our obligation to assert and defend that dignity as we seek the face of God. Pope St. Leo the Great told us of that duty of ours when he said in the fifth century, “Christian: remember your dignity!”

I am deeply sorry that the pursuit of justice was so long and difficult for you here, and for me, and for all who were involved. Those who stood for justice will enjoy what the psalmist promises, that the Lord does wonders for his faithful ones, and hears us when we call upon him. Further, the light of the Lord will shine on us, and he will put gladness into our hearts (Psalm 4).

The Vatican official who made the last determination of my case spoke out on March 25. He is Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He told Vatican Media that “The pope very often repeats this phrase: ‘When one of us suffers, we all suffer.’” Scicluna added, “If there is this attitude of solidarity, if there is the thirst for justice of which Jesus speaks, but also the will to do good, then the law becomes a living instrument, otherwise, like all laws, it could remain a dead letter.”

I am grateful for the Church’s laws and courts. I received no justice, no comfort and no word of mercy from the Diocese of Duluth during my long ordeal, and often told the bishop, and the previous bishop, that Psalm 31 speaks to my pain: “I am like a dead man, forgotten, like a thing thrown away.”

Pope Paul VI told us that if we want peace, we must work for justice. We who seek Christ among us must understand that justice is the first virtue of both Church and civilization. Without justice, we have no future or no hope. I am grateful to the Vatican, my legal team, my family and friends, and many of the members of this parish, and many former members, who insisted that justice be done. We cannot walk away from injustice and hope that the universe will fix it. Our mission is to build the Reign of God among us; we cannot do so if we ignore the demands of justice. Justice is first and obligatory; we are bound to seek justice; we are called to do charity. Jesus Himself tells us in today’s Gospel passage why we pursue justice, no matter the cost. Remember that the two disciples who had encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus were telling the others about their experience. “While they were still speaking about this, [Jesus] stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” They were terrified, thinking He was a ghost. When they recognized Jesus, He ate with them, and said:

“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name to all the nations,
beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”

Christ “claims dominion over all creation,
that He may present to [the] almighty Father,
an eternal and universal kingdom:
a kingdom of truth and life,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.”
— Preface of Christ the King

We, you and I, are called to be men and women of peace, in imitation of Jesus, with whom we are on the road, and whose Spirit gathers us to Himself. Here at St. Michael’s, our immediate task will be to pray together and listen to each other with the ears of our hearts. After that, we will ask each other, Where do we go from here? We can’t have a plan or an agenda yet, but we will move to healing and peace, reconciliation, cooperation with grace, “Proclaiming the Gospel in Word, Sacrament, and Service” (Parish Mission Statement 2015).

I have heard that some say that this is a time for mourning, or grief or grieving. I do not say that. I say that this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it.

May The One who began this good work in us bring it to completion in the day of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this landmark post. You may also like these related posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:

Saint Joseph: Guardian of the Redeemer and Fatherhood Redeemed

Casting the First Stone: What Did Jesus Write on the Ground?

Priests in Crisis: The Catholic University of America Study

The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”