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(SOUNDBITE OF OLAFUR ARNALDS' "PARTIAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.Home Alone star Devin Ratray arrested for domestic violence after 'strangling his girlfriend and punching her after she gave fans his autograph for free' We have more dignity where there was shame. We have more justice where there was abuse. It says, dear friends, we have accomplished so much together. And it begins with a message from Phil himself that I want to read part of. And last night, one of his friends sent me a tribute book about him. PFEIFFER: Phil was 69 when he died yesterday of gallbladder cancer.
WHEN JESUS SAY YES NOBODY CAN SAY NO, AMAZON MOVIE
So much of what happened in that movie would not have happened if Phil wasn't who he was. HUFF: Phil was truly one of the greats to walk the Earth in our time, I believe.
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I called Neal yesterday, and here's part of what he said. He also became good friends with the actor who played him, Neal Huff. And by the way, A, he was on stage at the Oscars when the "Spotlight" movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He founded the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He became a true activist and an effective advocate.
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MARTINEZ: And, Sacha, it sounds like Phil really did find a way to turn something really horrible and tragic into something positive. And you can't have more impact than that, I don't think. And I mean, there were emails that said, you are the reason I'm alive. JIM SAVIANO: I've been reading his emails, and he knew that. And Jim told me that Phil received an outpouring of gratitude in recent weeks. And that brother, Jim Saviano, told me he considers Phil a hero - you know, a hero for getting the church to reform how it deals with abusive priests and for encouraging other people who'd been molested to come forward. Phil spent his final weeks at his brother's house. PFEIFFER: It was huge on an individual and an institutional level. MARTINEZ: How would you describe Saviano's impact? He was determined to get someone to pay attention to what he'd found. And he gave the Globe key material we needed to show that the church had been covering up this abuse for decades. So he made it his mission to research clergy sex abuse. But Phil said if he was going to die, he might as well do some good on his way out. And you have to remember - the Catholic Church used to be treated much more deferentially in this country. PFEIFFER: In the early 1990s, Phil was extremely sick with AIDS - close to dying - so he felt he had nothing to lose. MARTINEZ: Why did Phil decide to go public? He went public, and that helped lay the groundwork for a gigantic scandal that ultimately brought down a cardinal and got Pope Francis to apologize. When Phil told the church he'd been molested, he refused to sign a confidentiality clause, and that freed him to become a whistleblower. The victim told no one, or they told their family and their family told no one, or their family complained to the church and were asked to keep quiet and sign a confidentiality agreement in return for a financial settlement. But back then, it was usually kept secret. Now, we now know clergy sex abuse was tragically common. SACHA PFEIFFER, BYLINE: When Phil was 11, he was molested by a priest in Massachusetts. Sacha, what do we know about Phil Saviano's childhood experience? What did he do about it? MARTINEZ: NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer was one of the investigative reporters on the Globe Spotlight team. NEAL HUFF: (As Phil Saviano) When you're a poor kid from a poor family and when a priest pays attention to you, it's a big deal. He was portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie "Spotlight." And in this scene, he speaks with a group of Boston Globe reporters. Phil Saviano was a survivor of that abuse and, decades later, went public with his experience. A key figure in exposing the Roman Catholic Church's cover-up of clergy sex abuse has died.