Pedophilia Again

This time, not in the church but at Penn State. But a similar story. Abuse covered up from a combination of ignorance about the irreparable damage caused by sexual abuse and a desire to protect the football program.

For what it's worth, I think people are coming down too hard on Paterno. He had no first-hand evidence, only hearsay, which is legally worthless. The eyewitness, McQueary, was the person who should have contacted the police.  And why should a 28-year-old college graduate need his head coach to tell him to call the police when a child was being raped? Could he not think of that himself?

My guess is another part of the reason no one called the police is that the U.S. prison system is brutal and it is one thing to see anonymous criminals go through it and another to see someone you know and like do the same. Perhaps that explains by O.J., Robert Blake, and Michael Jackson were all acquitted of murder or sexual abuse. The jurors felt they knew them and couldn't bear to lock them up for life.

A friend of mine at the church says "We are all driving broken machines." I think that comes from C.S. Lewis. Jerry Sandusky is one such person. While it is fashionable to heap opprobrium on pedophiles, I ca't help but wonder why he had this urge. Abuse in his own childhood? Some bizarre epileptic disorder? I also can't help but wonder if our hatred of him is a way of taking attention off of our own often-flawed sexuality.

The man should never be on the streets again, but the rest of his life will be hell and I don't feel good about that.

This is also a lesson to be wary of do-gooders.

Years ago, I met a priest I half-suspect of pedophilia. I don't have any evidence of any kind and his parishioners loved him. I just have a sense that he is a gay man who pays too much attention to women and that he is using them as a "beard," so to speak, in order to cover up something more troubling. He was one of those professional do-gooders too.