It has been a good week for sexually abused children.
 

It is not a cure; it is just justice. Sandusky's convictions are the tip of the iceberg of how many other children has he pluked.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/justic...html?hpt=hp_t1

The next conviction for covering up priest abusing children by moving then to another parish full of fresh meat is the esteemed Monsignor William Lynn, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Pure scum of the Earth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/us...ing-abuse.html

It is about time.

I see the newly elevated Archbishop of Baltimore is leading a crusade to kill PPACA called Fortnight for Freedom. I think Sister Simone Campbell beat him to the punch with Nuns on a Bus.:D

Regarding the Sandusky situation........are they going to hold accountable the university officials who knew what Sandusky was doing but did nothing about it?

It's interesting how this got considerably less press than the Sandusky affair. Is it a reluctance to go after the Catholic Church?

Criminally? I don't know. In civil courts? Bank on it.

I wonder if the NCAA will strip the school of their football program? I can't decide whether this is a sports issue and falls under NCAA oversight or not. :confused:

I see it as outside the NCAA jurisdiction. I don't see any good reason to further expand the NCAA's authority. It is a body inclined toward overreaching as it is. (Geez, I'm sounding like a libertarian.:o)

That is not to say that heads should not have rolled/ should roll within the athletic department, and within other offices in the university charged with oversight. We can also rest assured that this will create plenty of employment opportunities for lawyers.

Regards,

D-Ray

D-ray, those univeristy officials who did nothing while knowing what was happening..........wouldn't they be mandated reporters? Seems to me they could be charged with something if that were the case.......no?

It's a damn shame that old Joe didn't get to go to the "pokey" for his last years for being just like the priest above and covering up for his long time pedophile friend.

If I read it correctly the A.D. and Vice Pres are being looked at right now....

I think Sister Campbell may be giving the Ratzinger Boy's Club heartburn.:p

http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=si...bell&FORM=EWRE

She has also appeared on Colbert's show, google it.

What is happening in the C Church is mild to what occurs in the Ultra Orthodox Jewish where a whole community protects molesters.

Aren't ultra Orthodox Jews not allowed to touch women as they may be "unclean"? Don't they have to cover their wives with a sheet just to reproduce?

I remember the Orthodox Rabbi coming into the music store I used to manage. The boss, a non Orthodox Jewish woman in her 70's would always extend her hand to him and he'd always step back from her. She'd say "Honey, I'm well past all that at my age" but he'd still refuse to touch her.

She explained the "rules" to me once and I couldn't help but think how odd such customs are in today's day and age.

I guess it's yet another example of large, powerful organizations protecting child molesters in their midst.

Following my previous post.

Hynes finally moves after being accused of being afraid of the powerful Orthodox in Brooklyn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/ny...ml?_r=1&pagewa

Rob, this is a national campaign with Lori at its head. This is a really tricky one. The Catholic Church is doctrinally opposed to birth control but The Affordable Care Act will require all employes to offer reproductive care, including contraception, to their employees.

Archbishop Lori said this: "Religious freedom includes the freedom of individuals to act in accord with their faith but also the freedom of church institutions to act in according with their teachings and to serve as a buffer between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual conscience."

Interesting. Yes, the Church has a role to play in countering the excesses of the State but, as I see it, only with respect to the denial of individual rights or a requirement that individuals act in opposition to their conscience. As Lori says, individuals must be free to act in accordance with their conscience. The problem here is that the Church being able to deny coverage for reproductive care constitutes interference with that very right.

The bit about requiring the Church to "enable" individual behavior that is antithetical to its teachings is the tricky bit and I don't really have an answer. One interesting question is whether those prohibitions should apply to employees of the Church who aren't themselves believers.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore was a very progressive institution at one time, very engaged in the community and in the social justice movement. By and large, the congregation was behind them. I think Catholics in Maryland are still pretty much of the same mind collectively so I suspect most have left off attending or supporting the Church. At any rate, I hope so.

John

According to religious edicts molesters should not be reported to the police, but to Rabbis who would deal with it.
Now........ if the molester is a Rabbi? :D

I don't know how I feel about this.

If I report to my superior that I believe I saw a colleague doing a line of cocaine in the company bathroom, but no action is ever taken, is it my fault?

If an investigation is conducted by said superior -- generating an open file -- but nothing is ever discovered to a degree of evidenced criminality, is it their fault?

It's very easy to use such a whopping conviction as "they should have known" but we need to recall what officials started with: a single guy saying "I think I may have witnessed something."

Yep, and back to the Catholic angle where actively covering for child abusers was seemingly the formal worldwide policy of the Church for decades.

Zeke, being a mandated reporter is different than speaking up about someone doing drugs on the job.
A mandated reporter is obligated to report the abuse of children, dependent adults, and the elderly. One does not have to have 'proof', only a suspicion, then the officials investigate.

Is a young football coach who isn't certain of what he's seen enough to do anything beyond opening a file? (In the work I have done, that implies an investigation.)

That not enough information was collected to trigger action isn't directly anyone's fault.

It's been months since I read all the details but I believe it was shown that Paterno and his superiors knew about what was going on and chose to turn a blind eye in the name of the program and the schools rep.

It was certainly alleged by the assistant coach who caught Sandusky and a kid in the showers. Paterno never confirmed the conversation (and,of course, never will) and no investigation was ever opened. The assistant coach (McCarthy?) should have gone straight to the police but "institutional loyalty" obviously got in the way of doing the right thing.

John

I believe I read were prosecutors are going after the other people that facilitated and covered up Sandusky's child rapes.

YES! even if he was not sure of what he saw, but simply "had a feeling" that something wasn't right, that is the criteria for mandated reporters. If he reported his "feeling that something wasn't right" that should have triggered an investigation. And, that there wasn't enough information collected was the fault of those who choose not to investigate throughly.

I am glad to hear that.

What Archbishop Lori is doing is imposing his religious beliefs on non-catholics, which just about covers everyone else in the country. If these catholic hospitals offer conteaceptive coverage in their healthcare plan then true believers will not avail themselves of it. Does the good Archbishop toss and turn at night knowing that somewhere, someone is using birth control? It is not a question of religious freedom it is a question of imposing one's beliefs on others who do not believe as you do.

"Had a feeling" seems like a low standard. Wouldn't opening such an investigation potentially harm someone's reputation if the "feeling" proves wrong, thus, opening the mandated reporter to a potential defamation lawsuit? Isn't the McMartin case a classic example of people being falsely accused by the overly zealous? Of course, here we have the nicety of hindsight; but things perhaps weren't so crystalline at the time the actions occurred.

Precisely.

Yep, Sandusky is going to jail.

So, how is it his wife and all of those other scumbags who knew about it for 40 years, and did nothing, get to walk?

I can't help but think about how many of those men would have been spared the indignity and horror of his abuse had any one of them had the decency, or the balls to squeal decades ago.

I guess the stupid game was more important..............

Dave

'had a feeling' is the criteria for the mandated report. I can assure you, the criteria investigators must abide by is far more stringent and, in too many cases, binds potential helping hands.
Mandated reporters are exempt from any legal recourse for a mandated report. They can, however, be prosecuted if they fail to report suspected abuse of a dependent individual.

You may find this an interesting read, Barb (and others).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...K0V_story.html

Yes, finnbow, unfortunately innocent people get accused of crimes. But, the failure in the story you cited was not that of the/a mandated reporter.
The investigators, prosecutors, etc. Need to do their jobs correctly to avoid these kinds of errors.
The mandated reporter is only reporting something that has raised some sort of suspicion. It is up to investigators/law enforcement to establish if there is criminal activity.