Oscar 2016 Update: Vatican Praises Best Picture Winner 'Spotlight' Despite Focus On Catholic Church Sexual Abuse

"Spotlight" has received numerous awards -- including the coveted Best Picture Academy Award for Oscar 2016 -- and critical acclaim from hundreds of movie critics. The movie has also received praise from a surprising place: Vatican City.

The Vatican City's newspaper called L'Osservatore Romano has published two articles giving support for the movie about child sexual abuse by priests from the Catholic Church. The first article is an editorial piece from journalist and historian Lucetta Scaraffia and the second article was written by movie critic Emilio Ranzato.

"It is not an anti-Catholic film," Scaraffia wrote. He added that the movie "manages to voice the shock and profound pain of the faithful confronting the discovery of these horrendous realities."

Catholic Online also posted excerpts from Ranzato's movie review. Ranzato noted that Spotlight "is not an anti-Catholic film because Catholicism in itself is not even mentioned." The critic also called the movie courageous for shedding light on injustice committed by some of the Church's priests.

A new Catholic Church commission assigned to identify sex abuse by priests even held a private screening at Vatican City of the controversial movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter. And in October 2015, a commentator for Vatican Radio praised the Boston Globe Spotlight journalists who uncovered the clergy abuse in Boston for helping the Church accept, admit and pay for the crimes.

The movie "Spotlight" won two Academy Awards for best picture and best original screenplay at Oscar 2016. The movie was directed and written by Tom McCarthy and starred Michael Keaton as Walter "Robby" Robinson, Michael Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer, Liev Schreiber as Martin "Marty" Baron and Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll as a special team of journalists trying to uncover child sexual abuse cases committed by Catholic Church priests at Boston, according to History vs. Hollywood.