2002 Boston Globe Spotlight Investigation
In January 2002, the Boston Globe published a series of investigative reports revealing that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests had molested children over a span of decades, and that Boston's Catholic Archdiocese had systematically concealed the abuse from the public and from law enforcement. The investigation, conducted by the Globe's dedicated investigative unit known as the Spotlight Team, shook the Roman Catholic Church at its institutional foundations and prompted a national and international reckoning with clergy sexual abuse. The reporting drew on civil lawsuits, confidential church documents, and interviews with survivors, attorneys, and psychological experts to construct a detailed account of how abuse had been perpetrated and covered up across generations. The investigation later became the subject of the Academy Award–winning film Spotlight (2015), cementing the story's place in the history of American investigative journalism.
Background
By the late 1990s, isolated allegations of clergy sexual abuse had surfaced in various American dioceses, but no sustained, systemic examination of the Catholic Church's institutional response to such abuse had been published by a major metropolitan newspaper. In Boston, a city historically defined in part by its large Irish-Catholic population and its deep institutional ties to the Church, the subject was particularly sensitive. Civil attorneys had begun filing suits against the Archdiocese of Boston in prior years, but court settlements frequently included nondisclosure agreements that kept documentary evidence sealed from the public record.
The Spotlight Team, the Globe's in-house investigative unit, began organizing a systematic inquiry into the Archdiocese of Boston following the appointment of Marty Baron as the newspaper's editor in 2001. The team sought access to sealed court documents related to civil cases involving accused priests, a legal effort that would ultimately succeed and provide the documentary backbone of the published investigation. The reporters worked to compile records on individual priests, to interview survivors who had not previously spoken publicly, and to consult experts in the field of clergy psychology and Church governance.
A key expert consulted during the investigation was Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and specialist in clergy sexual abuse, who had long maintained that the Catholic Church had been too slow to address abuse within its ranks.[1] Sipe's analysis and testimony contributed to the team's understanding of how institutional structures within the Church had allowed abusive priests to remain in ministry long after allegations had been raised by victims or their families.
The Investigation and Its Findings
The first major report in the series was published on January 6, 2002. The article documented how the Archdiocese had allowed a priest with a documented history of molesting children to continue in ministry for years, moving him from parish to parish rather than removing him from contact with minors or reporting his conduct to civil authorities.[2] This pattern — transferring priests rather than disciplining or reporting them — emerged as a central finding of the entire investigation.
The Spotlight Team's subsequent reports expanded the scope of the inquiry beyond individual perpetrators to the institutional mechanisms that had enabled the abuse to continue. The investigation established that hundreds of priests had molested children, that the pattern of abuse extended across decades, and that church administrators had conspired to conceal the activities of accused priests from parishioners, victims, and civil authorities.[3] The reporting examined not only the actions of individual priests but the decision-making of bishops and other senior church officials who had received complaints and chosen to reassign rather than remove those accused.
Civil litigation played an important role in surfacing the documentary record underlying these findings. An attorney filed a civil lawsuit accusing the Boston Archdiocese and other church administrators of conspiring to cover up the activities of abusive priests, with allegations spanning approximately fifty years.[4] The lawsuit alleged that the cover-up was not incidental but coordinated, involving multiple levels of church administration. The Globe's coverage of this and related civil actions helped contextualize the abuse as a structural problem rather than the isolated behavior of a handful of individuals.
Institutional and Legal Consequences
The publication of the Spotlight reports set off a cascade of institutional consequences within the Archdiocese of Boston and across the broader Catholic Church in the United States. As the scope of the abuse documented by the Globe became apparent to the public, pressure mounted on Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, to account for decisions made under his leadership. The reports accelerated a legal and ecclesiastical reckoning that had been building slowly through civil litigation for years.
The investigation drew national attention to the gap between canon law processes and the requirements of civil child protection statutes. Advocates for survivors and some legal scholars argued that the Church's internal governance structures had functioned to shield credibly accused priests from civil accountability, a point that the Spotlight investigation documented with specific cases and records rather than general assertion.
Beyond Boston, dioceses across the United States and in other countries faced renewed scrutiny of their own handling of abuse allegations, with survivors who had previously remained silent coming forward in greater numbers following the Globe's reporting. The investigation contributed to a broader environment in which the Catholic Church in America eventually developed new policies for addressing abuse allegations, including requirements that accusations be reported to civil authorities.
The Book Betrayal
Following the completion of the initial investigative series, the Spotlight Team's reporting was compiled and expanded into a book titled Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, published by the investigative staff of the Boston Globe. The book provided a comprehensive account of the investigation's findings and placed the Boston case within the wider context of clergy sexual abuse in the American Catholic Church.[5] It became an important reference for journalists, researchers, advocates, and legal professionals examining the issue in the years following the original publication of the series.
The book received substantial attention from critics and academics alike, and its publication extended the reach of the Spotlight investigation's findings to audiences beyond the Globe's regular readership. The work documented the human cost of the abuse and the institutional failures that had allowed it to persist, and it contributed to ongoing public debate about the accountability of religious institutions.
Academic and International Recognition
The 2002 Spotlight investigation has been examined extensively in academic contexts as a case study in investigative journalism, institutional accountability, and the relationship between the press and powerful civic institutions. Scholars at institutions including the University of Pennsylvania have used the investigation to explore the dynamics of what might be described as a David-versus-Goliath confrontation between a regional newspaper and one of the world's most powerful religious institutions.[6]
Internationally, the investigation has been cited as a reference point in discussions of clergy sexual abuse and institutional accountability in other national and religious contexts. Advocacy organizations focused on abuse within religious institutions have pointed to the Boston Globe's reporting as an example of how sustained journalistic inquiry can surface systemic wrongdoing that internal institutional processes have failed to address.[7] The investigation has also been referenced in discussions of abuse within the Catholic Church in countries outside the United States, where comparable patterns of concealment have since been documented.
The True Story Award and similar organizations recognizing narrative nonfiction and investigative reporting have engaged with the Spotlight investigation as a benchmark against which other major investigations into institutional religious abuse are measured.[8]
The Film Spotlight (2015)
In 2015, filmmaker Tom McCarthy released Spotlight, a dramatic feature film based on the Boston Globe investigation. The film starred an ensemble cast that portrayed the Globe's Spotlight Team reporters as they worked through the investigation, and it depicted the institutional resistance the team encountered from powerful Boston civic and religious figures. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards.
The actors in the film conducted extensive research into the lives of the journalists they portrayed, and the production sought to represent the investigative process with accuracy and specificity.[9] The film's release reintroduced the story to a new generation of viewers and prompted renewed public discussion of clergy sexual abuse and institutional accountability in the Catholic Church.
The success of the film also drew renewed attention to the journalism underlying it, including the role of the Spotlight Team's editorial leadership and the legal strategy that had been required to unseal the court documents on which much of the reporting depended. The film is regularly cited in discussions of investigative journalism in both academic and professional settings.
Legacy
The 2002 Spotlight investigation remains a defining moment in the history of Boston journalism and in the broader history of American investigative reporting. It demonstrated that sustained investigative inquiry into a powerful institution, conducted with rigorous sourcing and documentary evidence, could prompt accountability at an institutional scale that individual civil lawsuits or criminal prosecutions had not achieved on their own. The investigation altered public understanding of how abuse within religious institutions had been systematically managed and concealed, and it contributed directly to legal and policy changes affecting how the Catholic Church in the United States handles allegations of clergy misconduct.
For the city of Boston, the investigation represented a complex moment of civic reckoning. The city's deep historical relationship with the Catholic Church meant that the reporting confronted powerful social and institutional forces, and its publication required the Globe to withstand substantial pressure from prominent figures who had long regarded the Church as a cornerstone of Boston's identity. The investigation stands as evidence of what metropolitan investigative journalism can accomplish when editorial leadership, legal resources, and sustained reporting are brought together in the public interest.