Phil Saviano dies after being sexually abused by Catholic priests in US

Boston – Phil Saviano, A survivor Sexual abuse By the clergy and the whistleblower who played a key role in exposing the decades-long occupation of the Catholic clergy United States, Died at the age of 69.

Saviano’s story was widely circulated in the hit film Oscar The 2015 “Spotlight” The Boston Globe newspaper investigation into how dozens of priests abused children and escaped cover by church leaders. He was battling gallbladder cancer and passed away on SundaySaid his brother and caretaker. Jim Saviano.

At the end of October, Saviano announced on his Facebook account that he was going to launch the Wellness Hall. He died at his brother’s home in Douglas, Massachusetts.

“Things have been tough for the last few weeks,” he wrote, “listening to Judy Collins singing‘ Bird on a Wire ’and asking her fans to think about me.

Saviano was instrumental in exposing this scandal, which led to the resignation of the Cardinal of Boston. Bernard Law And fake agreements between the Church and hundreds of victims. The Globe Text Series, published in 2002, won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003, and “Spotlight” won the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Actor Neil Huff He played Saviano on tape.

“My gift to the world, was not afraid to speak”Saviano said in a brief phone interview with the Associated Press in mid-November.

David Holly recalls that Saviano, born June 23, 1952, went to St. Denis’s Church in the small town of Douglas, east of Massachusetts in the 1960s to testify as a teenager and to tell the Reverend his violations through a loophole. The priest, in defiance of that sacred belief, forced the 11-year-old boy to engage in sexual activity. Holly died in 2008 in a New Mexico prison after serving 275 years in prison for abusing eight children.

He has three siblings, Jim Saviano, John Saviano and Victor Saviano, and two nieces and two nephews.