Tom McCarthy won an Oscar for telling the world that the Catholic Church systematically covered up child sexual abuse for decades. That was nine years ago. And here’s what’s driving him absolutely crazy: it’s still happening.

The Film That Changed Everything (Except the Thing That Actually Mattered)

“Spotlight” swept the 2016 Academy Awards – Best Picture, the whole deal. It was this masterclass in understated filmmaking, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams playing the Boston Globe reporters who cracked open one of the biggest institutional scandals in modern history. The film didn’t sensationalize anything. It just showed journalists doing the work, following the paper trail, and what they found was horrifying: priests abusing kids, the Church shuffling those priests around to new parishes, and the whole thing happening over and over again in a pattern so obvious it made you wonder how anyone could’ve missed it.

Except people didn’t miss it. They ignored it. And that’s what’s eating at McCarthy now, because nearly a decade after his film supposedly “raised awareness” and “sparked a conversation” (God, I hate those phrases), the abuse is still going on. The cover-ups are still happening. The Church still isn’t protecting kids.

So What’s Actually Changed?

Here’s the thing – and this is where it gets frustrating – “Spotlight” did everything a film like that is supposed to do. It won awards. It got people talking. Catholic organizations held screenings and panel discussions. There were think pieces and op-eds and promises of reform. The Pope even met with abuse survivors and said all the right things about accountability and transparency.

But McCarthy isn’t buying it. And honestly? Neither should we.

The director’s been pretty vocal lately about how the fundamental problem hasn’t been solved. The Church’s structure – the hierarchy, the secrecy, the way power flows from the Vatican down through cardinals and bishops who protect each other – that’s all still in place. They’ve added some oversight committees and revised some policies, sure. But the system that allowed the abuse to happen, that enabled the cover-ups, that prioritized the institution’s reputation over children’s safety? That system is basically intact.

Why Films Can’t Fix Structural Rot

Look, I think “Spotlight” is a incredible film. It deserved every award it got. But there’s this thing we do with movies about social issues where we act like the film itself is the solution. We watch it, we feel informed and maybe a little angry, we talk about it for a few weeks, and then we move on. We mistake awareness for action.

McCarthy seems to understand this better than most. He made a film about journalists who spent months tracking down sources and documents and building an airtight case. The movie itself took years to research and produce. And what he’s saying now is basically: that was just the beginning. The real work – the unsexy, grinding, institutional work of actually reforming the Church – that hasn’t happened.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Since 2016, there have been major abuse scandals in Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Mexico, and multiple other states. The French Church released a report in 2021 estimating over 200,000 victims since 1950. Germany, Ireland, Australia – the pattern keeps repeating. These aren’t old cases from the 1970s finally coming to light (though there are still plenty of those). These are recent failures. Current cover-ups.

And McCarthy’s point is that we already knew. “Spotlight” told us. The Boston Globe told us before that, in 2002. Survivors have been telling us for decades. But knowing isn’t enough when the institution itself refuses to fundamentally change.

“The film was supposed to be a mirror held up to the Church, but you can’t force someone to look in a mirror if they keep turning away.”

The Oscar Trap

There’s something almost cruel about how this played out. McCarthy made the definitive film about this crisis. It won Best Picture – the biggest award in film. And then… what? The Church got to congratulate itself for being “willing to confront difficult truths” while continuing to operate exactly as it had before. The film became a kind of cultural accomplishment we could all point to as evidence that we’d dealt with the problem.

But we hadn’t dealt with the problem. We’d made a movie about it.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the film was pointless. It probably helped some survivors feel heard. It educated people who genuinely didn’t know the scope of what happened. It preserved an important piece of investigative journalism in a way that’ll outlast newspaper archives. Those things matter.

What doesn’t matter, apparently, is institutional accountability. Because the Church is still the Church. Cardinals still protect bishops who protect priests. Settlements still come with non-disclosure agreements. Files are still sealed. Perpetrators are still quietly reassigned rather than turned over to police.

What Actually Needs to Happen (But Probably Won’t)

McCarthy isn’t the first person to point out that real reform would require dismantling the power structures that make the Church what it is. Mandatory reporting to law enforcement – not internal Church tribunals. Financial transparency. An end to the statute of limitations on abuse cases. Independent oversight with actual enforcement power, not committees appointed by bishops investigating bishops.

The thing is, the Church will never voluntarily implement these changes. Why would it? Every reform that’s been suggested would weaken the institution’s control over its own operations. And institutions don’t reform themselves out of moral clarity – they reform when they’re forced to, when the alternative is collapse. It took a lawsuit before Cornell's president finally broke his silence, which says plenty about how reluctant institutions are to admit fault on their own.

So here we are. Nine years after “Spotlight” won Best Picture. Twenty-three years after the Boston Globe’s original reporting. Decades after survivors first started speaking out. And Tom McCarthy is still out here saying the same thing those reporters said in 2002: the Church still isn’t protecting kids.

At some point, you’ve got to stop giving them credit for promising to do better and start holding them accountable for continuing to do the same terrible things. A movie can’t do that. An Oscar definitely can’t do that. Only actual consequences can – legal, financial, institutional consequences that make the cost of covering up abuse higher than the cost of preventing it.

Until that happens, we’re just going to keep having this conversation. Directors will keep making films. Journalists will keep writing exposés. And the Church will keep failing the people it claims to protect.