Saviano’s story figured in film about Boston Globe investigation that revealed how priests molested children and got away with it
Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Catholic priests in the US, has died. He was 69.
Saviano’s story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight, about the Boston Globe investigation that revealed how scores of priests molested children and got away with it because church leaders covered it up.
He died on Sunday after a battle with gallbladder cancer, said his brother and caregiver, Jim Saviano. In late October, Phil Saviano announced that he was starting hospice care.
“Things have been dicey the last few weeks,” he wrote, asking followers to “give a listen to Judy Collins singing Bird On A Wire and think of me”.
Saviano played a central role in illuminating the scandal which led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law and church settlements with hundreds of victims. The 2002 series earned the Globe the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. Spotlight won Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay. Neal Huff played Saviano.
“My gift to the world was not being afraid to speak out,” Saviano said in mid-November, in a brief telephone interview.
Saviano recalled going to confession at St Denis Church in tiny East Douglas, Massachusetts, as an 11-year-old in the early 1960s. The priest, David Holley, forced him to perform...
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