Vatican newspaper: Oscar winner 'Spotlight' is 'not anti-Catholic'

VATICAN CITY, March 2 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning movie Spotlight received a surprising endorsement from a Vatican-owned newspaper on Monday.

L'Osservatore Romano defended and praised the film, which won the Oscar for best picture, as "not anti-Catholic, as has been written."

In its Monday editorial, Lucetta Scaraffia wrote the film "manages to voice the shock and profound pain of the faithful confronting the discovery of these horrendous realities."

Michael Sugar, the film's producer said in his acceptance speech Sunday night "This film gave a voice to survivors. And this film amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican."

Scaraffia embraced Sugar's statement.

"The fact that a call arose from the Oscar ceremony -- that Pope Francis fight this scourge -- should be seen as a positive sign: there is still trust in the institution, there is trust in a Pope who is continuing the cleaning begun by his predecessor, then still a cardinal," he wrote. "There is still trust in a faith that has at its heart the defense of victims, the protection of the innocent."

The editorial pointed out that while Spotlight is only focused on one part of the story, it gives "space to the inner devastation that these (abusive) acts generate in the victims, who no longer have a God to plead with, to ask for help."

Vatican Radio also praised the film in October as "honest" and "compelling."