UNITED STATES
Boston Herald
By Margery Eagan
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Just hours before a jury on Friday found former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky guilty of raping and sexually abusing boys as young as 9, a Philadelphia jury convicted a Catholic monsignor of allowing a known pedophile priest to continue his ministry with children — resulting in the sexual assault of a 10-year-old boy.
The parallels between the two cases and the church sex abuse crisis here just take your breath away.
One parallel: The predators were not strangers in trench coats but respected, supposedly upstanding members of powerful, all-male, insular and elite communities. “A saint,” is the word a local wrestling coach used to describe Sandusky, legendary for his charisma, charm and generosity to the disadvantaged children he helped and even adopted. Now one adopted son has accused Sandusky of abusing him, too.
How ironic that so many parents today, fearing strangers, won’t let our children play outside or walk anywhere alone. Yet we now know that attackers almost always turn out to be those both we and our children know and trust, those we may not suspect even after the abuse occurs.
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