Will
the punishment ever fit the crime?
-- Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal's aide, was found guilty Friday
of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman
Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by
priests under his supervision.
In other parts of the American religious landscape:
- A former Crawford County youth pastor was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to seven counts of first-degree sexual assault in Crawford County Circuit Court.
- NEW
YORK -- Four men have been
indicted for trying to bribe and threaten a victim into dropping a case against
a rabbi accused of sexually molesting her in a close-knit Orthodox Jewish
community in Brooklyn.
-
"Southern Baptists should heed this lesson from the Penn State scandal. Effective
accountability systems require the involvement of outsiders for the sake of
objectivity."
Sexual
child abuse among the religious is now considered a pandemic: no longer can the
term "pedophile priests" be used to quite the degree it has been.
Studies have shown that the percentage of child molesters is just as high in
Protestant denominations and Jewish Synagogues/Yeshivas. In the last five
years, there have been more than 3000 reported cases of child abuse. Insurers
to Protestant churches report at least 3-400 cases per year . And as far as pedophilia is concerned, a vow of celibacy
has little to do with it. We have come to an age of finger-pointing and counter
finger-pointing, with few answers as to the cause, and even fewer answers as to
how it should be dealt with.
And the cover-ups ruined lives and muddled affairs for
over four decades, with whistle blowers being portrayed as psychologically
disturbed malcontents. Victims described years of continued abuse, horrific
pressure to "forgive" their abusers and guilt. But as the abuse
cases, the arrests, the trials, the settlements pile up, one question is still
unanswered: is justice being served? The above-mentioned Monsignor Lynn will
get a maximum of six years in prison for enabling pedophile priests under
orders from an even higher-ranking prelate (now deceased). What will the four
Hasidim get for threatening a victim?
Recently,
prosperity preacher Creflo Dollar received a hand-slap and a paltry $5000 bail
for allegedly choking his own daughter. "Bishop" Eddie Long's
congregation forgave four lawsuits of sexual coercion, and two real
estate/ponzi schemes.
The "REV Syndrome" and "Abuse of Forgiveness"
Amidst
all the scandals and arrests, there lies the faint feeling that the the
perpetrators and their enablers are treated with a lighter form of justice than
others. Yes, there are the occasional strong penalties, but non-clerical
pedophiles as a whole receive harsher sentences: the automatic respect given a
member of the clergy extends to the clergy's personal life. What can be called
the "REV Syndrome" (blind respect for any member of the clergy simply
because they are clergy) takes affect immediately and the community at large
tend to take a more lenient attitude. The "He's just human" meme
seldom means that the offending cleric be chastised in the same manner as lay
("secular") person or non-congregant.
Another
mitigating factor in leniency is what noted author Janet Heimlich* calls " The
Abuse of Forgiveness " in which she describes the act of forcing child
abuse victims to forgive their abuses. This abuse, however, also radiates out
into the religious community. For example, Jimmy Swaggart's
congregation seemed to
forgive him, and while his direct congregation has decreased in number, he
continues to broadcast to over 104 countries.
Coming To Terms With Justice
Monsignor Lynn's own lawyer told the jury that "in this trial, you have seen the dark side of the church."
But the
"dark side" caused by blind respect, abuse of forgiveness and the
righteous arrogance leading even whole
denominations to refuse investigation, needs to be addressed along with
pedophilia and enabling child abuse.
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