Spotlight director Tom McCarthy says the Catholic Church still hasn’t changed enough a decade after the Oscar win

Spotlight director Tom McCarthy reportedly stated that the Catholic Church didn't progress enough in 10 years to safeguard children from s*xual abuse even after the film's Oscar win in 2016. He said,

"Has it caused a lot of change within the Catholic Church? In my opinion, not really. Not enough."

Spotlight showed how The Boston Globe uncovered and exposed the cover-up of clergy s*xual abuse of children in the Boston archdiocese. The movie spread new awareness across the world and exposed the scandals related to children's s*xual abuse.

Earlier, Salon interviewed the director to discuss the movie, and there he said that welfare and lives are still in danger, and because of that, those lives are still at risk. He mentioned that the Catholic Church should bring real changes in both practice and policy.

McCarthy further explained that the Pope took a positive step by speaking about the issue, but he felt that words alone cannot solve the problem. He stressed that the real demand is for change until children are truly safe and added that many Catholics also felt very strongly about this requirement for protection.

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Tom McCarthy felt that the Catholic Church still hasn’t changed enough even after Spotlight's Oscar win

According to Variety, Spotlight's director, Tom McCarthy, opened up about the expected changes in the Catholic Church after people saw the film's success in Academy Awards. He said that not enough progress was made in the Catholic Church in the past ten years to fully protect children from s*xual abuse, even after his movie won the Oscar.

McCarthy's new movie, A Statement, which premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 3, 2026, can be considered a cathartic response to the lack of institutional reform after Spotlight. His upcoming new film is based on the life of 20 experts who will work together to draft a unified statement for Congress about the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate.

Scandals related to the Catholic Church

Ebsco reported that the Catholic Church has dealt with major s*xual abuse scandals for many decades, especially in the United States. In the 1980s, media reports first appeared, but the problem drew wide attention after The Boston Globe exposed widespread abuse and weak responses from church leaders in 2002.

Investigations revealed that thousands of priests were accused, and many victims came forward. As a result, the revelations caused public anger and close examination of how the Church managed the cases.

The Boston Globe article exposed a case about Fr. John Geoghan, who was accused of abusing more than 130 young boys over a period of 30 years while church officials took little action against him despite knowing about his actions. Eventually, Geoghan received a 10-year prison sentence, but in 2003 he was killed by another inmate.

According to NCR, many Catholics sensed the seriousness of the crisis from the beginning. Some of them have even committed to staying loyal while confronting the scandal about children's s*xual abuse. The scandal created Voice of the Faithful only a few months after the Globe's major January 2002 report was published.