UNITED STATES
Courier-Journal
Arthur McCaffrey, Guest Contributor April 18, 2017
I have just completed an extensive, comparative review of international cases of child abuse, revealing common trends and historical patterns shared across countries. These similarities also extend to the recent case of abusive mistreatment of a passenger by United Airlines, which demonstrates many of the typical features usually associated with clergy abuse of children.
For instance, a common feature of abusive environments is an asymmetry of power, often involving institutional authority figures– priests, teachers, gymnastics coach, football coach, airline cabin crew, airport security– who wield their authority to overwhelm the victim. The different means used differ only stylistically: while a priest may woo and groom his target, in the United case airport police took a more brutal, direct approach. The end result is the same: an unconscionable attack on the dignity of the human person.
Next, you have the availability of hapless, powerless, vulnerable victims who are preyed upon–an innocent 10-year-old altar boy, or a foreign-looking passenger who may not know enough English to protest.
Then comes the abuse, either sexual in the case of Catholic children, or physical in the case of the United passenger. In either case, the powerful rape the powerless, often with an almost reckless sense of invincibility, confident that it would be too risky and costly for their umbrella institution (Church or corporation) to blow their cover. One might label this the Sandusky Syndrome, after the notorious case of pedophilia at Penn State University involving assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
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