BishopAccountability.org
	When Leaders Abuse Power Los Angeles Loyolan November 10, 2011 http://www.laloyolan.com/opinion/board_editorials/when-leaders-abuse-power/article_8fc0ce58-0b4a-11e1-a65c-0019bb30f31a.html From Wall Street to the Catholic Church, the world has watched as several celebrated institutions have seen their reputations marred due to internal corruption in recent years. Long traditions of trust and loyalty have been smashed, and the chaotic process of picking up the pieces in the aftermath of these massive abuses of power continues. This week has seen two more examples of such betrayal. On Nov. 8, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi agreed to resign from his position. Though his decision to resign was ultimately caused by his country's economic woes, his past is riddled with sex scandals and legal troubles that include bribery and tax fraud. He will leave behind a country threatening to collapse under the weight of its debt. Back home in the United States, Pennsylvania State University has been thrust into the national eye after a scandal broke involving its nationally celebrated football program [see "Remember Paterno for his legacy, not controversy," Page 16 for Asst. Sports Editor Dan Raffety's take on the issue]. Former Assistant Football Coach Jerry Sandusky has been accused of sexually abusing boys for nearly a decade. Head Coach Joe Paterno, who has coached Penn State football for 46 years and was relieved of his position yesterday, and school officials as high up as the vice president of the university, may have known about the abuse and neglected to notify authorities. Though the Italian political situation and the football scandal at Penn State have many obvious differences, they have a couple of vital similarities that should be recognized. First, in both, educated and successful people in power have behaved extremely unethically and, in some cases, illegally. There's no question much of the motivation stems from the fact that enormous amounts of money are at stake in these situations. The people's leaders failed them because they chose to let other people suffer in the interest of monetary gain and their institution's reputations. Joe Paterno may have more victories than any other coach at the top of college football and he may have raised millions of dollars for Penn State, but that should never have given him the license to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse. Ultimately, you can't solely blame the leaders for the crumbling of the entire institutions, but leaders are supposed to rise above the personal interests that often create a path for corruption in order to route the institutions in a progressive direction. If we can't depend on our leaders, on whom can we depend? Allegiance to money over ethics may bring temporary material prosperity but is definitely not worth the irreparable suffering that sometimes results when the truth comes out.
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