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	Editorial: Parallels Abound in Psu, Catholic Church Scandals Daily Times November 21, 2011 http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2011/11/21/opinion/doc4ec9db67afcd5563889635.txt As the sickening saga continues to unfold in the child sex abuse case against Penn State University ex-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, one can't help but notice the similarities with clerical sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church. Sandusky allegedly abused eight boys over 15 years and continued to have access to them even after then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary said he reported to university and team officials that he witnessed Sandusky raping a boy in the Penn State locker room in 2002. More than 60 priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia allegedly assaulted children over six decades and were reported to church officials who, in many cases, gave them continued access to children by simply moving them from parish to parish. In both instances, it took grand jury reports to bring these disturbing allegations to the forefront. In 2005, a grand jury investigation launched by former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham revealed that 63 archdiocesan priests allegedly abused children as far back as the 1940s. Forty-three of them had ties to Delaware County. None of them could be criminally charged because the state's statute of limitations had expired by the time prosecutors became aware of the allegations. In February, the findings of a second grand jury investigation of clerical sexual abuse, launched by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, were released. This time, a revised statute of limitations, that was expanded to age 50 for victims in 2006, enabled arrests to finally be made. Not only were two priests, one former priest and a former Catholic school lay teacher charged with abusing children, the monsignor who was responsible for investigating sexual abuse was charged with endangering children because he did not turn these alleged abusers over to civil authorities. That revised statute also proved helpful in the Penn State arrests that were the results of a state grand jury investigation. On Nov. 5, Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly announced that criminal charges were being filed against Sandusky for sexually assaulting eight boys. Charges were also filed against Penn State Athletic Director Timothy Curley and Penn State Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, both for not only failing to notify civil authorities about one of the assaults, but for allegedly lying about it to the grand jury. According to the grand jury report, McQueary informed longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno that he had witnessed Sandusky raping the child in 2002 the morning after it happened, and Paterno then informed Curley. About a week and a half later, Curley and Schultz, who oversaw campus police, called McQueary to a meeting and he recounted what he had seen Sandusky do to the child. "Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," said Kelly, who noted that there was apparently no attempt by university officials to learn the identity of the child who was sexually assaulted. Sandusky, however, was allowed to have continued access to campus facilities including a locker room office for his Second Mile charity for disadvantaged youth that the attorney general said was a source for the boys on which he allegedly preyed. It was part of the deal when he retired at age 55 in 1999, one year after university police investigated allegations of inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with young boys in the football showers. No criminal charges resulted at that time. Sandusky, Curley and Schultz have denied all charges. Paterno, who said he wished he had done more, was fired on Nov. 9 along with Penn State University President Graham Spanier. In recent years archdiocesan officials who found reports of abuse of minors by priests to be credible have taken the abusers out of active ministry and, in several cases, relegated them to lives of supervised prayer in a retirement facility, Villa St. Joseph in Darby. It wasn't until the first grand jury report was released that Vatican officials pursued in earnest, defrocking some of the accused abusers. The second grand jury report has moved archdiocesan officials to suspend 26 more priests while they review complaints against them. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in fact, did not make reporting suspected sexual abuse to civil authorities mandatory until 2002 when the child molestation conviction of a Boston priest broke the scandal open nationwide. One can only wonder if the Penn State scandal is the tip of the iceberg for the college athletic community in general when it comes to the alleged abuse of children. It is not outside the realm of possibility. After all, there was a time when it was inconceivable that a trusted minister of the church could hurt a child. There are still people today who choose to believe it is all just a "media witch hunt." No matter what the institution, a conspiracy of silence is an evil thing when it comes to protecting abusive individuals — especially when it is at the expense of innocent children.
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