More Sad Connections

In an earlier post I mentioned the comparison between the scandal happening in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, after the sex abuse charges against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, and the thirty years of clerical sex abuse revealed in the Catholic Church worldwide. 

One way the two scandals are not similar is how accountability was exercised.  In the Catholic Church there was a steep, way too steep, learning curve, first at the level of national bodies of bishops, then later at the Vatican.  Few bishops (save Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston) lost their positions because of their cover-up and criminal negligence.  Most culpable bishops, in the Holy See's typical process ("we think in terms of centuries, not years"), resigned after reaching the age of 75, and were replaced in the ordinary manner.  To my knowledge, only one bishop has gone to jail, a Canadian, and that was because he personally possessed child pornography, not because he was hiding priest pedophiles.  At Penn State the Board of Trustees acted within a week to fire university president Graham Spanier and legendary head football coach Joe Paterno.  Good for the trustees.

Here are two more articles which make the comparision, from USA Today (November 6, 2011)  http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/11/penn-state-paterno-sex-abuse-catholic-priest-scandal/1  and The New York Times (November 13, 2011)  www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-devil-and-joe-paerno.html?_r=1&ref=rossdouthat . 

Columnist Ross Douthat, in the second referenced article, goes further than just making the comparision.  He calls to mind Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a bishop from Columbia, who stood up to drug dealers in his native Medellin, fed the poor, and was highly regarded by his countrymen.  Then he was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, who appointed him prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome.  When stories of the priest pedophile cases reached Castrillon's desk, he dismissed these as nothing more than an American problem.  He even praised a French bishop for refusing to denounce an abusive priest to civil authorities.

Douthat asks, "How did the man who displayed so much moral courage in Columbia become the cardinal who was so morally culpable in Rome?"  Rather than summarize his points, I urge you to read his brief but challenging argument.  

The practice of virtue and good is ever a challenge, especially for those who are good.