Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Catholic priests in the US, has died. He was 69.
Saviano’s story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight, about the Boston Globe investigation that revealed how scores of priests molested children and got away with it because church leaders covered it up.
He died on Sunday after a battle with gallbladder cancer, said his brother and caregiver, Jim Saviano. In late October, Phil Saviano announced that he was starting hospice care.
“Things have been dicey the last few weeks,” he wrote, asking followers to “give a listen to Judy Collins singing Bird On A Wire and think of me”.