Tweet
(photo: steakpinball/flickr)
Guilty.
That was the word that rang out over the head of Jerry Sandusky in a Pennsylvania courtroom yesterday. Forty-five times it rang out, once for each of the charges associated with his abuse of at least 10 boys over the course of 15 years.
Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
It was not a surprise to Sandusky’s lawyer.
“From the beginning, we knew what we were facing. Surprise would have been [if the verdict had gone] the other way.”
This makes Jerry Sandusky the latest in a sad string of abusers — a string filled with coaches, teachers, priests, and parents — who took advantage of their position of trust to satisfy their own sexual needs with vulnerable children in their care. His story, as high profile as it is, as sad as it is, is not at all new.
What *is* new took place in a courtroom to the east, in Philadelphia.
Guilty.
That same word that likely condemned Sandusky to spend the rest of his life in prison also rang out over the head of Monsignor William Lynn yesterday. Lynn was found guilty of a single child endangerment, by transferring a priest he knew to be a danger to children from one parish to another — where that priest did indeed abuse another child.
Guilty.
It only rang out once, but it’s the first time that that word has been applied to a Catholic priest who did not directly abuse a child, but instead participated in covering up that abuse. Lynn knew what a danger Father Avery was, and did not act.
Guilty.
Lynn was Secretary for the Clergy, whose job it was to handle clergy placement on behalf of the archbishop. Lynn’s lawyers tried to cast him as a mere functionary, who had no authority to challenge what the archbishop wanted done — and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Archbishop Bevilacqua wanted things hushed up and buried. The main reason that Bevilacqua wasn’t charged was that the grand jury felt his health was too poor — a judgment borne out when the Cardinal died on the eve of Lynn’s trial. (The grand jury’s report is here.)
At the trial, Bevilacqua’s actions were scrutinized Father Thomas P. Doyle, the canon lawyer who tried to warn the USCCB about the dangers of covering up for child abusers back in the 1980s. In thanks for his work, the hierarchy of the church derailed his career and sidelined him from offering them any additional advice. The prosecution, however, put his advice front and center in the trial:
A priest who is an expert on canon law testified Thursday that in his opinion, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was guilty of obstructing justice when he ordered the shredding of a confidential memo in 1994 that listed 35 archdiocese priests accused of sex abuse.
Father Thomas P. Doyle, an outspoken advocate for victims of clerical sex abuse, was asked on cross-examination what advice he would have given Bevilacqua.
“He’s got a list of 35 men who are sexually abusing children, and he’s going to shred it?” Doyle asked incredulously.“No way,” Father Doyle told the jury. “That’s like obstruction of justice.”
That sole “guilty” spoken in Philadelphia is the one that ought to send shivers up the spines of every bishop and cardinal of the Catholic church. In Philadelphia, the story is not over, as there are other trials waiting to be held on this. Similarly, if I were retired Cardinal Rigali, I’d be consulting with my attorneys rather closely. From the grand jury’s report, there certainly appear to be things that Rigali either knew or should have known about but upon which he did not act. Do they rise to the level of a criminal coverup? I don’t know, but there’s certainly enough there for a prosecutor to want to dig in a bit deeper.
Here in Kansas City, it certainly worries Bishop Robert Finn, whose trial for failure to report suspicions of child abuse by one of his priests is slated to begin later this summer. The priest’s computer was found to have child porn on it, and the Archdiocese knew about this for six months before reporting it to the police.
Guilty.
That one word from Philadelphia also ought to worry some folks at Penn State, much more than the 45 repetitions of it closer to home, as this nugget deep in the Philly.com story of Sandusky’s conviction notes:
Former Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, a former vice president in charge of the campus police, face charges of perjury and failing to report child abuse stemming from their response to the McQueary episode.
Prosecutors say both did not report the incident to outside authorities and later lied about their knowledge of it to grand jurors. They maintain their innocence and expect to take their case before a Dauphin County jury in the next year.
Bishops. Academic administrators. Whatever the title they bear, supervisors of all stripes ought to heed the warning coming from that Philadelphia courtroom. Better to deal with the bad publicity of one of your underlings misdeeds than to be found trying to sweep them under the rug.
This isn’t over, folks. Not by a long shot. But the legal landscape has changed dramatically — and for the better.
42 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
JUSTICE – what a wonderful word. Maybe there are abusers taking note. Thank you, Peterr. This really needs to be talked about.
Does the Holy See have extradition treaties? The next pedophilia tour stop?
Wake me up when Corzine is found guilty
No.
According to one account I read (can’t recall where), Lynn does not even have a passport. He was taken into custody, pending his sentencing.
Thinking more of a world tour for Cardinal Dolan, Rigali et al.
always love your posts peterr, the info in this one is especially promising
My Saturday musings:
The question that this culture must look into is not so much the evil of what these (mostly) men do but why there is such an inertia in exposing them and pursuing justice for victims?
I have known some of these predators professionally. Universally when asked why they do it the response is “because I can.” I have never seen authentic remorse. (These are the traits that attracted Ayn Rand to the child murderer she modeled Roark on.) What is it about this (and likely other cultures) that makes the “can” so easy and the justice so difficult?
Personally I think it can be found in the most primitive nether regions of organic drives — our lizard brains. Freud observed we wouldn’t need taboos if humans didn’t want to pursue the prohibited behavior. The cultural acceptance of child sexual abuse, especially of boys, rises to the level of consciousness now and then in ancient and more recent rigidly paternalistic and rigid hierarchies. The Catholic church of course is an example but not to be ignored are the so called southern heritage organizations, Klan or the Chronicles of Scalia, Bork and Thomas. (Wm. Fleming at the time editor, commented that it was proper for O J Simpson to manage his private domestic situation) At one level the status of women as property and the domination if not murder of feral young men “feels” like a natural state to such.
The same fate awaits him as did Jeffery Dalmer…. Buh…bye…
This is sooo unfair. How is Penn State going to get all those alum donations without a pedophile coach, who just happens to win games. /s
“Because I can” and “because I have to” are the answers to most human questions.
TS, I have read for many years that pedophiles cannot be cured or deterred – that the compulsion is so strong that they can’t stop. Do you believe that’s true? If so, it’s very alarming.
I can see the campaign for donations now:
Maybe they’ll leave out the non-pedophile bit…
Different cultures different mores.
Showing breasts is not sexual in most of sub-Saharan Africa.
I seem to recall the Ottoman Empire and the Greeks had different mores about boys & men.
A wall is built one brick at a time.
Better to deal quickly with the bad publicity of one of your underlings misdeeds than to be found trying to sweep them under the rug.
Then there is little bad publicity.
Ah, the Cardinal Law Solution.
If the Roman Catholic church wants any future in the United States, that’s going to have to be a one-time deal. If Benedict (or a future pope) were to promote another Cardinal under threat of indictment into a nice cushy Vatican post of honor and out of the reach of the US legal system, I have to believe the outcry would be truly astonishing.
Indeed.
And, if done well, you can earn a little good publicity for having handled it appropriately once it came to your attention.
Lemonade out of lemons.
The interesting thing about Sandusky is that even though he was supposed to be JoePa’s successor, he wound up retiring at age 55 — a very young age to leave the college coaching biz.
In other words, not only did Penn State not want him, no other college sports program wanted him — despite his stellar record as an assistant coach, a record that had it been held even by a black man or a woman would have guaranteed rapid advancement to a blue-chip head-coach gig at most any college in the land.
This would, in my view at least, support the theory advanced by some sports commentators that Sandusky’s reputation as a molester must have been an open secret in the highest college-football circles.
Sounds right to me. It also suggests that someone knew and warned him to retire at that early age.
From Rocco Palma, a Philly-based Roman Catholic journalist whose blog is kind of the RC version of Politico (he often gets inside tips that the hierarchy wants to make public in a friendly venue) comes this note at the end of his lengthy post on the verdict:
It’s going to be a long hot summer, and an even longer winter in Philadelphia.
Didn’t know that. Very interesting. Thanks.
Yes.
Any college is like a small town unto itself. People know which marriages are fine, and which are in trouble. They know whose kids are problems, and whose are great. They know each others secrets, even if they don’t talk about them.
The same goes for the various academic communities. People who attend the same professional conferences know about their peers at other schools, and they gossip about one another over drinks in the hotel bars.
I have nothing direct on which to base this, but I have a strong hunch that Curley, Schultz, and former Penn State President Spanier (who has not yet been indicted) did indeed know that there were big problems with Sandusky, and they made it clear to him that he had no future at Penn State because of those problems. “Just retire quietly and ride into the sunset, Jerry. We’ll see that your retirement is comfortable, and no one will hear of these things.”
If that’s the case, they’re going to be sharing living quarters with Monsignor Lynn for a couple of years.
Meanwhile, the Vatican has hired FOX’s Vatican correspondent (and Opus Dei member) Greg Burke to be its media advisor. Make of that what you will.
It’s why the whole “Oh I’m shocked we had no idea” song-and-dance cuts no ice with me. I figure that if they truly didn’t know about his proclivities, Sandusky would have replaced Paterno as Penn State’s head coach back in the early ’90s — or been hired by another college. As we’ve seen, he didn’t exactly cover his tracks all that well.
Did the assistant coach who did report the shower incident keep his job? Can’t think of his name but he has red hair.
Which is why this post of yours is so very pertinent. Thank you for writing it.
Curley, Schultz, Spanier et al are quite, quite lucky that the DA who was probing the allegations concerning Sandusky (and the college’s handling of the allegations) had an untimely death. But even so, they still may well wind up wearing orange jumpsuits when this is all over.
That’s Mike McQueary — and he was let go in late November of last year.
With Paterno and the investigating DA Gricar both dead, a case against the Penn State brass might be harder to make. But not impossible.
That’s too bad. He was the only one who told the truth apparently.
I have never forgotten working at my public library in 1970 when a priest was checking out a book. I mentioned that “you” could trust a priest. He got a serious look on his face and said that was not always true. It was a warning to be watchful.
I was very glad to see that the church leadership’s actions are now under scrutiny. Maybe now they will put children first.
Pending appellate outcomes, retirement won’t be a problem now.
I think that is mostly true. Some I think can decide to resist the impulse most or much of the time but that is only in conjunction with strong surveillance measures. I do believe the fixation is pre-sexual and has little if anything to do with how most of us understand sex.
Now the answer “Because I can” actually in its own way has NOTHING to do with sex, because if it did, the answer would be different; it would be “Because I had the urge” or “I needed it..” or something like that. “Because I can” connotes having a choice and making the decision to do it and to do it to a child.
Society’s only guarantee that these sexual predators will never again defile the innocent is castration. The church is quite knowledgeable of this action.
Why, yes! In the sense that they’ll do everything in their power to assure that there are as many more of them as possible in this already-overpopulated world. And yes, in the sense that those who are born to or adopted by gay people won’t have the benefits of legally institutionalized families.
Actually, PW, now that this trial has taken place, it will be, I think, much easier for the Dept. of Education to invoke their rules and cut off their money to Penn State, and perhaps something can be done at the National Science Foundation level as well. Losing that level of money would hurt Penn State far more and would send a strong message to other colleges and universities. http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-investigate-penn-states-handling-sexual-misconduct-alleg
I really see this as a pre-cultural phenomenon and as I said above even a pre-sexual phenomenon. I do believe there are remnants or aspects in certain if not all male dominated hierarchical institutions.
Difficult to find the right words, but I think we all at some level have some familiarity with the drives and this leads to the inertia in recognizing and then dealing appropriately.
I really am no great expert so take this as opinion and perhaps food for seeking further understanding.
What ideas do you have as to why it is so often enabled by “good peopole.”
They believe they are entitled because they can. Might makes right.
Did they ever find DA Gricar’s body or cause of death?
Excellent, and timely post, Peterr. When the allegations surfaced last fall concerning Sandusky many of us saw the parallels between the RC Church and Penn State. After Attorney General Linda Kelly spoke, following the Sandusky verdict, Catherine Crier, MSNBC legal analyst, made an interesting comment concerning Kelly’s remark that society needed to shed “light on those dark areas where predators like Sandusky lurk.” Crier suggested that Sandusky wasn’t lurking in the dark when he molested those boys but rather was operating in the open – Penn State facilities, his own home, motels/hotels on the road, 2nd Mile charity – where he openly trolled for boys. I agree with Crier’s suggestion that Sandusky’s activities were an “open secret” probably known and discussed by a large number of people in the Penn State community not just a small number of employees. And I agree with you that the verdict in the Lynn case was heard loud and clear in the Penn State community.
Forgive me for making another comment so soon after my first comment. Last November I was visiting a Philly blogsite to read what folks in PA were saying about the Sandusky allegations. An anonymous commenter suggested that the 2nd Mile charity be thoroughly investigated because he had reason to believe that there were others – wealthy donors – who were using the charity the same as Sandusky. I hope the ongoing investigations leave no stone untouched – there may be other victims who have suffered as much as Sandusky’s victims.
My suggestions of the existence of child predator rings and child predator tourism to Asia were met with much skepticism. It being said by a number of folks here that these guys are loners. We would like to believe it but the evidence is to the contrary. I realize a little hysteria can create some pretty awful events and one must be cautious but I do believe our culture is surprisingly blind and or permissive.