'WHOSE TRAGEDY?'

What is happening at Penn State is not a tragedy for Penn State.

It's not a tragedy for Joe Paterno, or Graham Spanier, or any one of a thousand students whose school just became a national punch line.

It's not a tragedy for alumni who will have to answer questions for a week or two from prurient and stupid work colleagues.

It's not a tragedy for football fans, or for student athletes.

This is a tragedy for the children raped by Jerry Sandusky, and that is IT.

From Athenae at First Draft. Read the rest at the link.

Well said. Thank you, Athenae.

THE BEDE PARRY STORY IS NOT DEAD

Jim Naughton at The Lead once again addresses the matter of Bede Parry being admitted to the priesthood by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori when she was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada.

A story has been making the rounds in the last few days that purports to demonstrate that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori knew that the Bede Parry, a former Roman Catholic monk, had sexually abused minors and was likely to do so again when she received him as a priest into the Episcopal Church while she was serving as the Bishop of Nevada.

I'm sorry to have to address the matter again, but groups who are generally considered not to be especially friendly to the Episcopal Church are referencing the matter, not necessarily unfairly, with links to Patrick Marker's post at Conception Abbey Abuse. Thus, those of us who who care deeply about sexual abuse and the Episcopal Church must also pay attention.

Jim says further:

In Crisis Communications 101 (a course that exists entirely in my head) one is taught rules for governing the release of bad news: tell it yourself, tell it all, and tell it quickly. These rules apply with special force to organizations whose moral credibility is their stock in trade. I don’t know that the presiding bishop has bad news to deliver, but either way, she would be well advised to put the facts of the Parry case before us. (MY emphasis)

Jim is exactly right. The opportunity for the Presiding Bishop to tell the story quickly is past and gone, but the two remaining bits of advice still apply. The time is now. We need to hear from Bishop Katharine in her own words. What we do not need is more passing the buck for commentary to the present bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, Dan Edwards, who was not the bishop who admitted Bede Parry to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

Two of my earlier posts on the Bede Parry matter are here and here.

BISHOP KATHARINE, WE'RE STILL WAITING

John Chilton at The Lead posts on a statement from Bishop Dan Edwards of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada on Bede Parry:

A lawsuit was filed last week against a monastery in Missouri where Fr. Bede Parry, who has served All Saints for 11 years as organist and assisting priest, was a monk in another denomination in the 1980s. The suit alleges that Fr. Bede engaged in inappropriate relationships with youth in their late teens. In response to these allegations, Fr. Bede has resigned from his duties at All Saints and tendered to me his resignation as a priest.

Please read Bishop Edwards' entire statement. In my humble opinion the response by the bishop is weak tea, indeed, but at least he responded. However, according to Chilton, the Presiding Bishop refers all inquiries to her office about Parry to the Diocese of Nevada, which seems somewhat craven and unfair, since she, as the then bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, made the decision to receive Parry into the Episcopal Church as a priest, despite his history of sexual abuse, and presided over his reception. Surely, Bishop Katharine cannot remove herself from responsibility and place the whole burden of addressing the situation on Bishop Edwards.

Further from the post at The Lead:

Questions that need answers:

What process is in place to hear from those who may have been abused since Parry became an Episcopal priest?

How did they monitor him 24/7? How did the rest of community receive protection? Did the church know there was an admitted child abuser in their midst? Did the community around the church know? How did the diocese protect the vulnerable?

We're still waiting.

LATEST REPORT ON CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE BY ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY

For some days I've intended to write about the report by the researchers at John Jay College on child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, but I'm blocked. One stumbling block is the consistent use in the report of "incidents of child abuse", rather than "reported incidents of child abuse". We know, or we should know, that incidents of child abuse are grossly under-reported everywhere. The authors of the report state as much themselves. Therefore, it seems to me that the modifier should be used consistently. I don't know. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but when "reported" is left out, I stop in my tracks and think it should be there. What we know, especially about earlier times, may just be the tip of the iceberg, and there is much that we will never know. Even now, reports of cover-up still surface as is demonstrated by the recent story of the removal from active ministry of 21 Roman Catholic priests in Philadelphia.

And I surely do not buy the blame-it-on-Woodstock excuse. As Ken Briggs says in the National Catholic Reporter:

The Sixties did it.

The John Jay College report on child sexual abuse by priests nails it. Don't put the chief blame on the church -- nothing wrong with its teachings on sexuality or celibacy.

It's the demon Sixties with its ravenous demand for freedom. Blacks, women, college students, war protesters cut loose against the old restraints. Vatican II chimed in, wittingly or not, or borrowed from it, espousing such things as letting fresh breezes blow through the church and encouraging a participatory, more democratic Catholicism.

To many church authorities, the "revolution" that mattered most was about sex. Cramped minds imagined orgies and impulsive free love that assaulted church teachings.

I've finished reading the summary, and I'm on page 20 of the 152 page report, but I can't promise to read it all. The report is here in pdf format and is titled The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2011.

There's so much that I would like to address in the report that I don't know where to begin. As a result, I may never begin. The contributors at The Lead have done a terrific job of following the commentary on the report here, here, and here. Pardon me, if missed a link or two.