Editorial: When no one speaks up

Providence Journal
May 16, 2016

http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20160516/editorial-when-no-one-speaks-up

A sign at an entrance to St. George's School in Middletown.

One sobering lesson of the child sex-abuse scandals of recent years is that perpetrators who are not stopped usually find new victims. Reporting by Providence Journal Staff Writers Karen Lee Ziner and Jacqueline Tempera on May 1 has added disturbing new details to the story of Howard White, one of six former employees recently accused of improper behavior at St. George’s School, in Middletown. News of the allegations against Mr. White has had a ripple effect, bringing at least three additional accusers out of the shadows.

In 1974, Mr. White was quietly dismissed by St. George’s from his job as assistant chaplain after he admitted to sexual misconduct, according to a report issued last year by the school. But his behavior was not reported to child protection authorities, as required by law.

Mr. White went on to work at a girls’ school in Virginia from 1978 to 1982 and then moved on to a coed private school in North Carolina for two years. While no accusations have arisen from either setting, additional allegations did recently emerge from Waynesville, N.C., where Mr. White served as rector of Grace Church in the Mountains for 22 years.

There, the police are currently pursuing two criminal investigations. One is based on a woman’s assertions, reported by the Journal, that Mr. White abused her at the church during the mid-1980s, when she was about 15. Another stems from a complaint by Forrest Parker Jr., 46, who contacted the Journal after reading the woman’s story.

Mr. Parker said that as a youth, he was placed in Mr. White’s care by a social worker. He told Journal reporters he was raped and otherwise molested before managing to escape.

The Journal also learned that in 1996, a Florida man, Richard Albright, sued Mr. White, then still rector at Grace Church, and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of West Virginia. Mr. Albright asserted that Mr. White had molested him on a camping trip. But his suit was rejected by the courts as having been filed too late. The alleged actions took place during the 1960s.

Appallingly, from 1987 to 2002, Mr. White had permission to serve as a court-appointed guardian on behalf of abused and neglected children. A few years later, he moved to Bedford, Pa., where he filled in as a volunteer priest at an Episcopal church. After news of the St. George’s scandal broke, late last year, he was placed on administrative leave, and prohibited from being alone with minors.

Although the Rhode Island State Police and St. George’s are both conducting investigations, it is important to note that Mr. White has not been charged with any crime. Still, the string of accusations against him raises uncomfortable questions.

First, why did St. George's refrain from reporting him to the authorities? And if no one at St. George’s sent out a warning about Mr. White, why not? For that matter, if the accusations against him are true, any number of people may have looked the other way or remained silent over the years — including some of the alleged victims. As we have learned from the sex-abuse scandals besetting the Roman Catholic Church, silence is the straightest path to new victims. In religious settings, a misplaced impulse to forgive can become an excuse for concealing serious crimes.

The sooner those involved in the St. George’s scandal can be held to account, of course, the better for its victims. Unfortunately, the victimization may well have spread beyond Middletown.