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	Matter of Faith: Aren't We beyond "Awareness" of Abuse? By Steve Scott Leader-Telegram December 31, 2011 http://www.leadertelegram.com/features/religion/article_0a8eef2e-b068-598b-869c-02e3c4a5ef21.html A woman called NationalPublic Radio recently to share her hope that good would come out of the Penn State University sex-abuse scandal. "Maybe this will help raise awareness of the issue of child sexual abuse," she said. With due respect, aren't we past the time for raising awareness? Wasn't our awareness raised like the hackles on our necks when the clergy sex-abuse crisis spilled out across our consciousness for the past decade? Penn State's institutional suffering, lamentable as it is, pales against the scope of pain suffered in the Catholic Church since scandal broke there in 2002. (Mind you Lutherans, Methodists and Baptists have grieved scandalous behavior, too, just not nearly as publicly or widespread.) Certainly the church must have taught the wider culture something about how unseemly a mess is wrought by coverup and deception. One could rightly expect a church to be better equipped than a college football program to handle moral turpitude. But here's what the church and state college have in common: Those who are culpable tend to focus more readily on institutional reputations than on victims who first suffer the abuse. Sex abuse is a heinous crime. But its coverup is a flagrant moral failure. When an institution - be it church, university or elementary school - discovers malfeasance in its midst, why must it protect its reputation first before the rights of victims? Don't institutions believe the public would ultimately hold them in higher regard for aggressively responding to allegations than for shrouding them in secrecy? (Jesus said something about the truth setting us free.) The U.S. Catholic bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. My denomination, the United Methodist Church, in 1996 adopted a resolution intended to establish its congregations as safe sanctuaries for children. Others have done so before and since. But institutions are made up of people - fallible, imperfect and utterly human. Morality is seldom legislated but rather is built on one small decision to do the right thing. And then again. And then again. A succession of doing the next right thing. It's easy to be preachy and glib, especially when pontificating on a crisis in someone else's backyard. Who knows how we would respond if we unwittingly witnessed an unspeakable act, as did that 28-year-old graduate assistant coach who testified he saw a grown man sexually assault a young boy in the showers. Would our first call be to the police? Or to our mom or dad asking what to do? Or would we step in and break it up? Power, reputation, confusion and fear conspire to incapacitate even the innocent. In the church, we risk shying away even from necessary steps of prevention. We want to believe the best in people. No one wants to alienate beloved volunteers or cast aspersions on members of known moral character by submitting them to background checks. (Full disclosure: background checks have been required of paid staff members of our congregations but not all volunteers.) But none of us wants to endure what Penn State is suffering, or what countless good and faithful Catholics have tolerated through the unfair guilt of association. More important, no one - child or otherwise - should suffer abuse at the hands of anyone, nor have acts against them covered up by those in authority. In the church, of all places, shouldn't we willingly welcome the scrutiny of our houses of worship and be confident we can tell all who enter that we will go the extra mile to protect the vulnerable? It's not just to protect all people, but to honor and celebrate them as God's creatures. Scott, a UW-Eau Claire graduate, is pastor of United Methodist congregations in Holcombe, Jim Falls and the town of Anson in Chippewa County. He also is a former religion editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press who covered the clergy sex-abuse crisis. Matter of Faith, a column on faith and ethics, runs periodically.
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