An unlikely pair, but now linked by the fact that each has presided over a system gone awry. Each was apparently devoted to something he considered more important than the safety and welfare of victimized children.
I'm not suggesting that they actually would have consciously thought that. I don't doubt that their lack of action was rationalized somehow, maybe convincing themselves that the accusations might not be true, that it would ruin the careers of possibly innocent adults -- or perhaps they just didn't let themselves really, really comprehend the enormity of what they were told.
In Paterno's case, it was the out of bounds world of big-time college sports, where an iconic, beloved coach of 45 years presided over an empire that every year blotted out anything else of importance from September through the bowl games on New Year's Day.
For the pope and the Vatican, of course, it is the hierarchical world of the Roman Catholic Church -- not Christianity itself -- but the church organization, and particularly this one that gives such power to those cloistered men who live apart in a tiny principality of the Vatican.
Real life doesn't quite penetrate into either of these hermetic worlds. Something in these systems has allowed reports of sexual abuse of children to be ignored, covered up, not reported to the police -- in order to protect adults who are valuable to the system -- and, perhaps moreso, to protect the system itself.
I didn't know who Joe Paterno was until last week. By all I have read, he was respected, beloved, even revered. One writer said that anyone who has ever played for him loved him. There is a statue of him on the Penn State campus. He's won all the coaching honors.
Paterno is not accused of abusing children, but he was given an eye-witness report that one of his assistant coaches had been using gym facilities for trysts and even rape of young boys. And he did nothing about it.
On Wednesday, the University Board of Trustees quite properly fired both Paterno and the university president, who had supposedly also known and took no action.
This tragic scandal has shaken the university to its core. Initial student reaction was outrage that the coach was fired. Wednesday night when word spread, there was rioting on campus. By Friday night, some perspective had already returned. Students held a candlelight vigil for the child victims on the same spot as their rioting two nights earlier. I heard a recording of the Student Council President speaking. It was mature and calming.
At Saturday's game -- just days after this all broke and mindful of Paterno's forced absence from the game -- the Penn players, instead of their usual racing, roaring entrance from the tunnel, walked silently, slowly onto the field, arms locked with each other in a solemn, non-verbal display of sad solidarity. It set the tone of contrition and suggests that, with the student body anyway, maturity and balance have taken hold. It brought tears to my eyes, just reading about it.
If only the elders had been able to keep such a balance of values. Both in the athletic department at Penn and in the Vatican.
Ralph
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In Canada, there are laws regarding child abuse.
ReplyDeleteAny knowledge of abuse MUST be reported. Period.
Had this been done when Coach Paterno was first advised, many lives would have not felt the impact today.
We also have laws that include physicians, teachers, even psychotherapists. I'm not sure whether ordinary citizens are covered by the law.
ReplyDeleteThe point I wanted to emphasize is that -- in spite of the laws -- there are some institutions where the devotion of the insiders to the system is so great that human values get lost, even sacrificing children to maintain the system.
ReplyDeleteIn both the this world of fanatical devotion to a sports empire and in the hermetic empire of the Vatican -- they acted as though their adult team was above the law.
Now, again, I don't really think that they intentionally, consciously chose to sacrifice children -- but their blindness and self-absorption and the preservation of the system had the effect.
In Canada, everybody has the responsibility to report.
ReplyDeleteThe Penn State football team reportedly brings in a revenue of $75,000,000. So, was it a choice of $$$ over the children's well-being?
Pennsylvania's Child Protection Act of 1975 requires reporting of child abuse by a long list of people that includes: teachers and other school workers. And there are criminal penalties for not reporting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this may fall into a grey area as far as legal culpability here because the child was not a student in the school where these coaches were employed. On the other hand, it occurred on school property, and it should have been reported.
Again, that is sort of beside the point I'm trying to make. Even if the law covers this situation, the problem is a sports empire culture that is so single-minded that these men's priorities got all out of whack. They acted as though their whole enterprise was above the law.
I'll say more about this is a future post -- how the whole sports world is now focused on how quickly the school's reputation can recover from this and whether it will do lasting harm in terms of recruitment, applications to the school -- and most inmportant -- alumni donations.
That shows the terrible tunnel vision of this whole empire mentality.