Phil Saviano always said he came forward as a survivor of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest because he was dying of AIDS and had nothing to lose.
But his brother, Jim Saviano, doesn't buy it. He says Phil spoke out in the early 1990s because he wanted to protect children and hold the church accountable — and he would have done so regardless of his health.
Phil Saviano died on Sunday in his brother's home in Douglas, Mass., at the age of 69.
His advocacy led to the arrest and conviction of his abuser, Father David A. Holley, the resignation of Boston's archbishop Bernard Law in 2002, and church settlements with hundreds of victims.
Law, who later was appointed archpriest of a papal basilica in Rome, died in 2017. Holley died in prison in 2008 while serving a 275-year sentence for molesting eight boys.
Saviano's story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight about the Boston Globe's investigation into a massive sexual abuse coverup in the church.
Jim Saviano spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off about his brother. Here is part of their conversation.
How many people were willing to even listen to him when he started to talk about, not just that priests were doing this ... but that they were being moved around [and it was] being covered up by the church itself?
I know that he tried to get other friends of his in Douglas who had been abused by this priest to come forward. And I know that their parents were angry about that. They wanted to...
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