Seattle Times
November 11, 2011
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2016738647_edit11penn.html
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| Penn State coach Joe Paterno was fired. |
ONE does not have to go into specifics to recognize the pattern in two different stories with a shared, central theme: respected institutions with the power to deflect scrutiny and protect their own.
Penn State University trustees fired the college president and its legendary football coach because of revelations of sexual abuse too many people found too easy to overlook.
Pennsylvania prosecutors issued a 23-page indictment that focuses on a handful of victims, but the former assistant coach who was arrested Saturday was charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing children over a span of 15 years.
Coach Joe Paterno was told of a particular incident in 2002 and failed to follow through on any inquiry related to his retired associate of 32 years.
No one in the university did, and the abuse continued on campus and elsewhere with young boys.
Paterno is not in the legal spotlight, but revulsion at his role in allowing horrific behavior to continue with impunity belatedly cost him his job.
He announced plans Wednesday to retire at the end of the season, but did not survive the day.
Just last month, the bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese was charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman and failing to protect children after he waited five months to report images of child pornography found on the priest's computer.
Accusations, lawsuits and settlements are not new to a global sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, but this kind of civil accountability is a first for a U.S. bishop and his diocese.
The capacity of sacred institutions — from the church to a revered sports program — to avoid scrutiny has come at a horrific price in innocent lives. Taking care of one's own at the expense of others is shameful.
Closely held knowledge of horrible deeds that continue — that is the legacy of these events. Cloistered fraternities that kept terrible secrets do not exist separate and apart from reality or the responsibility that goes with their privileged status.
That message has not gotten through, at a cost of untold suffering.
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