Massachusetts author, Stephen Prothero asks "Why" the Church is not taking the Penn State pedophile case as serious as the NCAA?

JR Harris's picture
Submitted by JR Harris on Tue, 07/24/2012 - 12:57

Massachusetts blogger and author, Stephen Prothero asks "Why" the Catholic Church is not taking the Penn State pedophile case as serious as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)?

Massachusetts resident Stephen Prothero is a blogger for CNN and author of "The American Bible: How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation," (ISBN-10: 0062123432, ISBN-13: 978-0062123435) and asks the very important question of why churches do not take any action against pedophiles in their church like a professional organization would when Penn State was fined $60 Million dollars and banned from playing in the football league for 4 years.

In a nutshell, the answer can be found by following the money and the loopholes that these organizations make in their literature and announcements, who like Alcoholics Anonymous let individual churches say and do whatever they want and claim that they can do nothing about it and it is not their fault. The Catholic Church is run by the Vatican in Rome, while Alcoholics Anonymous is run globally from the Interchurch Center in New York and they both use the same indifference when it comes to the pedophilia running rampant in their ranks recruited from jails and prisons. The bottom line is that both organizations claim to be making no money and pay no taxes. While Alcoholics Anonymous claims to Spiritual, not Religious after leaving their rituals and ceremonies where they pray to god and recite the "Lords Prayer" and/or "Serenity Prayer", the Catholic Church claims to be Spiritual and Religious, just like the Church of Scientology that claims the same thing and has the same tax incentives.

If the Penn State football team had an office at the Interchurch Center on 475 Riverside Drive "inspiring growth of ecumenism and inter-religious activity" would they be banned from this facility and prevented from being noted for 4 years in any of the activities of the people associated with this facility or the organizations house there? Of course they would, and it is going to take such an action to force Alcoholics Anonymous to take responsibility for the actions it is enabling by the franchise it has started.

Look for the similarities, not the differences....

My Take: Why is NCAA taking sex abuse more seriously than Catholic Church?

By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN
July 24th, 2012 11:04 AM ET

CNN) – As a resident of the most Catholic state in the nation (Massachusetts), I have watched for more than a decade as the Roman Catholic Church responded to charges of priestly pedophilia with a troubling combination of procrastination and obfuscation.

Far too often, Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals have identified not with abused children but with their “band of brothers,” their fellow priests.

In the case of the sex crimes committed by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, officials at Penn State also looked the other way.

They must be credited, however, with commissioning a no-holds-barred investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report (PDF) concluded that Penn State officials engaged in a cover-up that allowed Sandusky’s sexual assaults on children to continue for years.

They should also be applauded for removing a statue of head coach Joe Paterno, who for far too long was revered as a demigod at Penn State.

On Monday, however, the NCAA took the higher road. In a shocking departure from the foot-dragging in Rome, it sided quickly and definitively with the victims.

In a harsh ruling, the NCAA banned the Penn State football team from postseason games for four years and took away 20 football scholarships per year for the same period. It also ruled that the university will not receive its portion of conference bowl revenues for those four years. And it fined the school $60 million.

Equally significantly, it turned all of Penn State's football wins from 1998 forward into losses, stripping Paterno of his claim to fame as the winningest football coach in NCAA history.

These penalties did not include the so-called “death penalty,” which would have shut down the football program for a year or more. But, in truth, this penalty is worse.

The NCAA acted boldly to send a message to collegiate athletic programs elsewhere in the United States that neither the sex crimes of Sandusky nor the “see no evil, hear no evil” response of Paterno and other Penn State officials will be tolerated.

Still, I wonder whether the message will reverberate even further, perhaps even to the hallowed halls of the Vatican.

I was not raised a Catholic, but in my youth I admired the Roman Catholic Church for taking clear stands on the major moral issues of our time – on abortion and war and poverty and capital punishment. I have watched with both sadness and horror as this venerable institution has squandered the moral capital it accrued over centuries in a misguided and un-Christian attempt to wish away a problem that was staring it in its face for decades.

Although the Vatican has undertaken nothing like the independent Freeh report to unearth how its institution lost its way, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did commission an outside report delivered in May by researchers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. It also weighed a parallel report by lay Catholics of the National Review Board in June.

Neither of these documents read anything like the hard-hitting Freeh report, however, and the Catholic Church did not respond to its crisis with either the speed or the firmness of the NCAA.

In the Gospel of Luke, at the end of the Good Samaritan story, Jesus tells his followers to “go and do likewise.”

That is the NCAA's message to the Vatican.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Prothero.

Read more, the comments are flowing in.......: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/24/my-take-why-is-ncaa-taking-sex-ab...

I think it's time to send a message to the Alcoholics Anonymous Vatican at the Interchurch Center...

Comments

JR Harris's picture

JR Harris

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 14:21

For a very good example of the AA loophole technique of the brainwashed members of the AA faith and the tactics they use see (you will be able to spot them instantaneously)-

"Randolph Pozdol in Miami Florida gets 30 yr sentence for pornographic filming and sex with his AA Sponcees Children aged 4 & 6, July 23, 2012" http://orange-papers.org/forum/node/2035

The AA evangelists portrayed in the above thread are what is wrong with Alcoholics Anonymous and exactly what Stephen Prothero is talking about.....

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.

JR Harris's picture

JR Harris

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 18:17

On July 24, 2014 Msgr. William J. Lynn was sentenced to 3 to 6 years in state prison for turning a "blind eye" to the problems if pedophilia in his church. Can Alcoholics Anonymous and the District Committed Members (DCM), General Service Managers (GSM) and AA Chairpersons be much farther behind. Using the same "loopholes" used by the AA faith to avoid responsibility Msgr. William J. Lynn did not convince the Judge in Pennsylvania.

Msgr. Lynn sentenced to three to six years in prison

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Posted: Tue, Jul. 24, 2012, 5:39 AM

Msgr. William J. Lynn was sentenced to 3 to 6 years in state prison Tuesday by a judge who said he turned a blind eye while "monsters in clerical garb" sexually abused children, devastating families and shaking the Catholic church across Philadelphia and beyond.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said she believed Lynn was once the kind and selfless parish priest that his suppporters so passionately described. But as the aide Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua tapped to investigate clergy-sex abuse, Lynn instead chose to protect the church over victims, she said.

"You knew full well what was right, Monsignor Lynn, but you chose wrong," she told him.

The sentence, the first for a Catholic leader for enabling clergy sex abuse, fell just short of the maximum seven-year term Philadelphia prosecutors sought. It was hailed by victims and advocates who had complained church officials long eluded justice for accomodating or concealing priests' attacks on children.

Lynn's lawyers wanted a probation or a county jail term, and were disappointed at a sentence they said was disproportionate to the defendant and his crime, a single count of child endangerment.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which paid for Lynn's defense but has been largely silent about his case, also questioned the term.

"We hope that when this punishment is objectively reviewed, it will be adjusted," it said in a statement.

Clad in his black clerical garb and white collar, Lynn told the judge that he was sorry for his "failings" during the 12 years he worked as Bevilacqua's secretary for clergy.

He spoke briefly and softly, repeating a mantra he first issued from the witness stand during his trial - that he did his best given limited power.

"But the fact is, my best was not good enough - and for that I'm truly sorry," he said.

Under state guidelines, Lynn will have to serve at least three years in prison before being eligible for parole.

Even then, his chances at getting out after serving the minimum could be slim. The state parole board has been reluctant to grant early release to inmates convicted of sex-crimes involving children.

On June 22, a jury found Lynn guilty of endangering children by not removing a priest in the 1990s after discovering the cleric once molested a teen. That priest , Edward Avery, later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

The jury acquitted Lynn of two other charges, including that he had conspired with church leaders to endanger children. But Sarmina declared him a risk to flee, revoked his bail and sent him straight to prison.

His sentencing hearing unfolded in a courtroom crammed with representatives from each of the groups touched by a decade of scrutiny on clergy-sex abuse in Philadelphia.

They included prosecutors and investigators who long portrayed Lynn as a gatekeeper for the archdiocese.

Evidence they culled from secret church files and produced during his three-month trial showed that Lynn catologued dozens of abuse complaints between 1992 and 2004. But he was often slow to seek out other victims, share information with accusers, or press the cardinal to remove priests who had been accused or even admitted abusing children.

Lynn's relatives, friends and former parishioners also packed several rows in the courtroom, and hundreds more sent letters to the judge, defending him as an undeserving scapegoat for flaws of church leaders.

A half-dozen took the stand and, at times tearfully, described the 61-year-old cleric as a kind, caring priest who mentored young clerics, consoled troubled mothers, rushed to the bedside of the dying and, at least later in his career, was vigilant about protecting children.

"There are very, very few people that we let get close to our children - and Monsignor Lynn is one of them," said Matt Coyne, and father of seven children and a parishioner at St. Joseph in Downingtown, where Lynn was pastor from 2004 until his arrest last year. "That is a good man . . . welcome in my home anytime."

Nearly as many courtroom seats were filled by relatives of the former Northeast Philadelphia altar boy who became the central victim the case. The man, now in his 20s, was sexually abused in 1999 at St. Jerome Church by Avery.

Assistant Patrick Attorney Patrick Blessington told the judge that Lynn may have been a good priest, but he was a "criminal" secretary for clergy.

"Of course he did good - every priest does good," Blessington said. "There is a time for mercy and a time for justice. This is a time for justice. How many opportunities did that defendant have to show victims mercy?"

Recounting letters from victims, Blessington said Lynn had a front-row seat to the horrors of clergy-sex abuse when he met with victims. They described being raped or fondled as children and spending years battling addiction, depression, suicidal thoughts and the inability to form or maintain relationships.

"He studied it, he saw it, but most importantly, he ignored it," Blessington said.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20120724_Lynne_scheduled_for_...

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.

alkieanon's picture

alkieanon

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 21:15

Horse apples and oranges. Look for the similarities, not the differences. LOL!

JR Harris's picture

JR Harris

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 21:39

As can be sen by the above post, a play on words was used in an attempt to protect the AA faith and derail the thread. The above post is a product of being an AA member trying to protect the prospect hunting ground of the cults that Bill Wilson built.

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.

alkieanon's picture

alkieanon

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 21:52

As can be sen by the original blog entry, a completely unrelated opinion about another organization was used in an attempt to attack AA with lies and falsehoods and derail any meaningful discussion. The above blog entry is a product of being an OPF Hate member trying to protect the cesspool of the clan that Orange built.
"Those who spread hate, are the doormen for evil. Don't bite the flamebait that leads to hate."

JR Harris's picture

JR Harris

Tue, 07/24/2012 - 21:59

Please forgive this poster he is brainwashed by Bill Wilson cults and "will go to any lengths" to protect Alcoholics Anonymous. Just remember he is very sick, as his cults make him admit.....

"Tradition 10 - Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy." Please follow orders from the Interchurch Center if you are an AA member and don't comment.