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‘Spotlight’ actor Mark Ruffalo urges abuse victims to speak out


 'Spotlight' actor Mark Ruffalo didn't just make the Academy Awards his focus on Sunday (February 28), where he was nominated in the best supporting actor category.

Earlier in the day, he attended a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles alongside the Oscar Best Picture winning film's director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer.

"So we were with SNAP today," he told Reuters on the Oscars red carpet, "which is a survivors' organisation of priest sexual abuse and they were down at the cathedral downtown where the archdiocese basically protesting to continue the lack of transparency of the Roman Catholic Church and Rome and the Vatican and most of the archdiocese here in the United States on sexual abuse. There are 2,800 priests who they know are absolute sexual predators whose names have still not been released and not been released here in the United States. Thousands more throughout the United States and the Vatican today is still dragging its feet on making any real reforms. So we were there today to try to bring justice closer to the hands of these poor people, this horrible thing that's happened to these people."

Ruffalo failed to win the best supporting actor Oscar but believed that 'Spotlight' had had an effect on the issue at the heart of the film. He plays real life journalist Mike Rezendes who along with the team of Spotlight investigative journalists uncovered widespread child abuse by Catholic priests in Boston.

"This is entertainment but sometimes it can make a difference in the world," he said. "When you can do that, it brings you closer to why you want to do it in the first place. And the more people come out the greater the chances we have of protecting more children and I think people are making that connection now. And it's safe to come out and there are a lot of loving kind people that are ready to receive you and to make sure that the horrible burden that you've been carrying is lightened and gives you a new life."

Earlier in the day, Australian Cardinal George Pell said the Catholic Church made "enormous mistakes" and dismissed cases of sexual abuse of children in "scandalous circumstances", as he became the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on Church abuse.

Giving evidence in front of abuse victims in a Rome hotel room, Pell told Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that children were often not believed and abusive priests shuffled from parish to parish. — Reuters

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