Catholic Bishops' Lesson for Penn State: Call the Cops!, by Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA Today, November 6, 2011

Catholic Bishops' Lesson for Penn State: Call the Cops!

By Cathy Lynn Grossman
USA Today
November 6, 2011

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/11/penn-state-paterno-sex-abuse-catholic-priest-scandal/1

By L.M. Otero, Associated Press

[Sandusky indictment]

David Clohessy, head of a sex abuse survivors group, held a photo of a victim of abuse by a priest, Eric Patterson of Conway Springs, Kan., who killed himself. Clohessy addressed the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' meeting in Dallas in 2002 when bishops confronted the explosive national abuse scandal.CAPTIONBy L.M. Otero, Associated PressA trusted adult, respected by the community, offers special programs for vulnerable boys -- then sexually abuses them. Word travels up to higher authorities but no one calls the police. They handle it within...

Sound familiar? It's the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal rewritten on a university campus.

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This time it's Penn State officials playing the role of the bishops from Boston to Los Angeles and scores of cities in between, from the 1950s to 2002 when the scandal exploded into national headlines. Now, instead of a priest as serial child molestor, a grand jury alleges that former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky preyed on boys he met through his youth foundation and enticed into his control with special access to the university's facilities.

According to our coverage: Sandusky, 67, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts based on alleged sexual abuse of eight boys, the state attorney general's office said.

Athletic director Tim Curley, 57, and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, whose position includes oversight of the university's police department, were charged with perjury and failing to report what they knew about the allegations in a case that prosecutors said uncovered a years-long trail of a predator and those who protected him.

Meanwhile, according to our coverage, the winningest coach in college ball history, Joe Paterno, did report the abuse -- to Curley, not to cops, "but the grand jury report did not appear to implicate (Paterno) in wrongdoing."

Mike Wise at The Washington Post, looses abarely-controlled scream over Penn State's shocking silence.

You want to grab hold of and shake those who reported the crime only to their superiors, washed their hands of responsibility and then let it go, treating a kid's life as if it were a football that slipped through their hands.

You can't read the 23-page grand jury report and come to any other conclusion; Penn State football and its pristine reputation apparently superseded the alleged sexual assault of a young boy -- perhaps as many as eight young boys -- over 15 years by Sandusky.

Joe Pa knew, if the charges are true. They all knew. And they never told police.

Sadly, those who have read gut-wrenching grand jury reports on the Church's pre-2002 dealings with predatory priests will see echoes in accounts from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and more posted at Bishop Accountability.org.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of that website. which archives documents related to the Catholic abuse scandal, Sunday called the Penn State story ...

a disgrace and a tragedy. What's rare and encouraging in this case is that the grand jury chose to hold the enablers as well as the perpetrator accountable. Let's hope this trend continues. When managers in ALL institutions know they will be arrested for hiding sexual predators, children in our society will be much safer.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- in nearly a decade of confronting the abuse horrors with a zero tolerance policy on credibly accused priests and child protection training for every employee and volunteer -- commissioned three major studies on the scope of abuse within the church. The latest one, released this spring, a look at the causes and context of sexual abuse of minors.

Its conclusions didn't spare the leadership. According to their press release:

The study also found that the initial, mid-1980s response of bishops to allegations of abuse was to concentrate on getting help for the priest-abusers. Despite the development by the mid-1990s of a comprehensive plan for response to victims andthe harms of sexual abuse, diocesan implementation was not consistent or thorough at that time.

The Penn State echo was evident to David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Saturday he told the New York Daily News:

Every adult knows you tell the police, preferably first, but especially if your supervisors in the workplace are not taking action. We are grateful that criminal prosecution is happening but school officials clearly have some explaining to do.We hope that Joe Paterno will be investigated for possible criminal activity.

Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston in 2002, withstood nearly a full year of increasingly shrill calls for his resignation for gross mismangement before finally stepping down.

But coverage of Law was only the beginning of years of revelations -- thousands of priests, thousands of victims, millions of dollars in settlements and the immeasurable losses of victims who suffer for decades or choose suicide.

And it put the white-hot light on the coverup: What did bishops know, and what did they do? What did Penn State officials know and what did they do? What is the right thing for Paterno to do now?