February 20, 2020
Boy Scouts failed to heed church’s lesson
ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 20, 2020
Since the 1960s, the official organization of Boy Scouts have amassed more than 14,000 documents alleging complaints of sexual abuse by scoutmasters or volunteers.
Boy Scouts of America has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect the organization and its multibillion-dollar assets from seizure amid hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits. A once-venerable institution, credited by generations of business and military leaders with grounding them in the fundamentals for success in life, finds itself in the same kind of crisis of trust facing the Catholic Church.
My befuddled comments:
I am still puzzled by both the Church and the Boy Scouts and other organizations where leadership seemed not to be too overly concerned by what victims experienced in these cases, especially the Church with her high moral teachings.
Did bishops and leaders of scouts and school districts just think that it was no big deal? That the kids would just get over it?
I still don't understand it. I do think, though, that those who did the abusing could lie their way out of it. But, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.
I was never a scout, but I had friends when I was a child who were in scouting. I remember overhearing a conversation from two boys my age, maybe 11 or 12 at the time describing one of their scout masters on an overnight trip, where three boys stayed with him in a room with two beds. One kid shared a bed with the scout master and the two kids I over heard stated that the scout master was fooling around with the kid and there was a lot of giggling, etc. I did not take what they were saying in a sexual way, but that the scout master was just horsing around. Obviously, it was highly inappropriate and they meant more by it that what I understood at the time.
Why would there be this nonchalant attitude about sexual abuse, not only inappropriate touching, but the far more intrusive forms that are so harmful to young and older alike?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 20, 2020
Since the 1960s, the official organization of Boy Scouts have amassed more than 14,000 documents alleging complaints of sexual abuse by scoutmasters or volunteers.
Boy Scouts of America has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect the organization and its multibillion-dollar assets from seizure amid hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits. A once-venerable institution, credited by generations of business and military leaders with grounding them in the fundamentals for success in life, finds itself in the same kind of crisis of trust facing the Catholic Church.
My befuddled comments:
I am still puzzled by both the Church and the Boy Scouts and other organizations where leadership seemed not to be too overly concerned by what victims experienced in these cases, especially the Church with her high moral teachings.
Did bishops and leaders of scouts and school districts just think that it was no big deal? That the kids would just get over it?
I still don't understand it. I do think, though, that those who did the abusing could lie their way out of it. But, burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me.
I was never a scout, but I had friends when I was a child who were in scouting. I remember overhearing a conversation from two boys my age, maybe 11 or 12 at the time describing one of their scout masters on an overnight trip, where three boys stayed with him in a room with two beds. One kid shared a bed with the scout master and the two kids I over heard stated that the scout master was fooling around with the kid and there was a lot of giggling, etc. I did not take what they were saying in a sexual way, but that the scout master was just horsing around. Obviously, it was highly inappropriate and they meant more by it that what I understood at the time.
Why would there be this nonchalant attitude about sexual abuse, not only inappropriate touching, but the far more intrusive forms that are so harmful to young and older alike?
18 comments:
"I am still puzzled by both the Church and the Boy Scouts and other organizations where leadership seemed not to be too overly concerned by what victims experienced in these cases, especially the Church with her high moral teachings.
Did bishops and leaders of scouts and school districts just think that it was no big deal? That the kids would just get over it?"
I think our leaders and the leaders of the Boy Scouts were VERY concerned from the get-go. Two things made an appropriate response difficult for them. Not impossible, but difficult.
First, we still suffer in our culture from a certain hesitation regarding talking about human sexuality of whatever form or shape. We just don't talk openly, even when doing so is necessary or beneficial, about these things. Talking about inappropriate sexual behavior, then, is doubly difficult. And talking about and acting to respond appropriately to inappropriate sexual behavior when it is carried out by someone under our supervision can be nearly impossible.
This was, I think, the case not only for bishops or religious superiors, but for any managers of personnel. Public school superintendents, WalMart store managers, local or regional Boy Scout officials all ran into this barrier.
Second, I think most leaders were quite aware that I this was a "big deal." Because it was such a big deal, those in authority also had in mind, as they should, what the consequences might be for the organizations they represent if this information became public or if reports were filed with the police. And, yes, we really did think that abusers could be treated for a relatively short time and be retuned safely to the general population. And yes, there may have been some who thought that the impact on children could be minimized over time.
Protecting the institution is a legitimate goal. Protecting the institution while not responding appropriately to abusers and those they have abused is always wrong.
For what it's worth, I was a Scout at Blessed Sacrament in Savannah. I never heard of any misbehavior among the adult leaders of our troop, or among the older Scouts.
Is there a sodomy badge they can earn?
Bee here:
My memory of those times were that molesting a child was considered a very big deal. I remember my mother trying to delicately teach us that some kinds of touching and behavior was not okay. I remember she read us the story of St. Maria Goretti, and I remember not really understanding that St. Goretti was the victim of a rape. I was only about 8 or 9, and didn't have any notion of sex at all, so I kind of got the idea the man was trying to kiss her. But I did understand my mother wanted me to tell her if such things happened to me.
I also remember people in general being very upset if an adult acted in a sexually inappropriate way toward kids. They were quick to intervene. I remember a guy who used to work in a factory that faced an open lot where the neighborhood kids played baseball. This man would stand and watch the boys play, and would invariably start touching his crotch. We kids all knew about it, and were grossed out by it, and stayed far away from him. Parents complained to the factory owner and it pretty much stopped.
I was in Girl Scouts, and my brothers were all in Boy Scouts. Never once did I ever hear that any kid in our parish was ever molested by a priest or scout leader. But I doubt parents were quiet about sexual molestation or embarrassed to call it out. I'm sure every parent went directly to the rectory if their child told them a priest or scout leader molested them. I heard stories of them being scoffed at, scorned, and of the pastor or bishop blaming the victim.
It is appalling that Church leaders were not appalled by fellow clergy or scout leaders in the parish who sexually molested children.
God bless.
Bee
Yes, Bea, it is appalling. When I was in the first grade the sister who taught us should not have been teaching first graders as she had no patience with us. We all fear her. She would call us up to her desk to answer questions about a subject in front of everyone. I was and still am a shy person and froze when it was my turn. She pinched me on the arm before sending me back to my seat and I was crying. The pinch left a mark. My mother saw it, told my father and he went to the convent. I am not sure what he said, but the next day Sister Lillian apologized to me and gave me a small plastic framed "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" picture. I was impressed that she apologized in the convent to me where she invited me and gave me that gift.
But sexual stuff as you describe, even with St. Maria Goretti was never broached with us. We were told not to go with strangers who allow them to pick us up in a car,because bad things could happen to us--that's it.
I was completely naive about sexual abuse even in my first years of ordination. It simply wasn't talked about in the seminary. The National Catholic Reporter began reporting on in around 83 or 84 and I thought they were exaggerating or making it up.
I worked at the Dairy Queen when I was 14 to 18. One of the managers would inappropriately with both male and female teenage employees, but we all knew how to fend for ourselves. Although at the age of 14 a 21 year old Medical student who worked there part time warned me about a guy who was maybe 17 or 18 or he thought was getting too friendly with me and horsing around with me. He was rather direct about it. I deeply appreciate his advice and concern to this day. But I was completely clueless about the intentions of this guy who horsed around we me when I was 14.
I’m glad you appear to have changed the tune after years if attacking the victims & thii OK de who exposed the abuse. I’ll fixed credit where credit is due!
The Morman Church aka LDS have pulled all of their boys out of the Boy Scouts which the LDS has always been heavily involved, but our Bishops will not do the same thing of course, not going to say it is a homosexual issue, lest we are called homophobes. The new Springtime of the 1960s was a disaster for the Church they destroyed the liturgy and that ONE thing alone was enough to put the Church in a death spiral that will take decades to recover from, but when the TLM is restored to its proper place and Novus Ordo failed experiment is history then all will be restored.
My feeling is that both the Church and the Scouts failed to react in what we NOW call - appropriately, because they both were already infiltrated by the types that were prone to molest. So reports went to compromised individuals....
Who are you speaking about in terms of attacking victims? Bishops in general or me in particular? I have never attacked a victim, but there has been a learning curb in terms of this horrible crime which is not only in the Church but every institution. It is in our homes, fathers and mothers abuse and older siblings too. All of this has been taboo to talk about in our culture until about the mid 80's or so.
But stop and think about who protected family members who abused. Did mom want to send the bread winner dad to prison or her son or her brother?
There's a lot of blame to go around but usually that doesn't help much.
A. is showing contempt again I see. Slanderosly so... very evil little man...
The homosexual scoutmaster has been a stereotype for over a century. Yet parents were quite happy to pack their boys off to scout camp. Why? Because there's safety in numbers. Abuse almost invariably occurs when perpetrator and victim are alone together.
When I was a boy altar servers were rostered in pairs. However, it was not because of fears they might be abused by the priest - it was in case one boy failed to turn up. I remember, one cold winter's day towards the end of 1959, serving an early Mass. In the sacristy afterwards the curate poured me a slug of altar wine. Corrupting the morals of the young? The first step on a slippery slope?
72 years old here; I grew up in a small village.
There were some odd folks in town that my parents made sure I, my brother, and my sister avoided. We were also warned time and again against interacting with strangers or getting in cars with those we didn't know. Early on these were just a vague warnings that such folks might do something bad; only when we got older did we have more details about abuse explained.
Being in a small town, where everybody knew everyone else, probably helped discourage any potential abusers. It also meant you couldn't get away with ANYTHING as a kid.
I had the same advice from my dad. Between the ages of 3 and 6 we lived in Atlanta next to Ft. McPherson (now closed). My father had warned us not to get into a car with anyone we didn't know.
I was about 4 and my brother was 10 and we were walking back to our apartment outside one of the gates of the post, but we were on the post. A lady I recognized drove up to us and asked if we wanted a ride. Since I recognized her, I said to my brother, yes, let's get in because I was tired, although not far from our apartment. My brother said no to me that made me mad and I got in anyway and then he reluctantly followed suit and she drove us home.
My father went on the warpath when he found out, questioned both my brother and me about it and even though I was at fault, he was older and got the punishment! I think too my father was angry at the woman when he figured out who she was. She had no mal intent. She was just being nice.
Off topic, but cool:
https://nypost.com/2020/02/19/indian-man-prays-to-life-size-statue-of-donald-trump-his-god/
Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said..."I think our leaders... were VERY concerned from the get-go."
Examples of "our leaders" who "were VERY concerned from the get-go":
McCarrick, Danneels, Weakland, Bransfield, Ferrario, Ryan, Lynch, Gumbleton, Cawcutt, et cetera, ad infinitum.
FRAJM @ 1:42, I bet that didn’t endear you to your older brother! He obviously took your Dad seriously, but followed you into the car to protect you. Has he forgiven you yet?
"...ad infinitum."
No, DJR, the list does not go on indefinitely or forever.
I have not encountered any reports in the media of bishops or religious superiors who dealt fairly and effectively with sexual abuse by clergy in times gone by. I suspect that is because they dealt with it and the abuser was, if not prosecuted, sent packing. That's where the story ends.
We know from reports that there have been many who suffered abuse who did not want their names or the names of their children who suffered abuse revealed. They wanted the abuser gone and the young people protected. They did not want to profit from their or their children's being victimized, and they didn't work to destroy the Church for the sins of individuals as some few individuals seem to want to do today.
Yes, I think leaders were very concerned, but for the reasons I posted, the response was inadequate.
Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said..."They did not want to profit from their or their children's being victimized, and they didn't work to destroy the Church for the sins of individuals as some few individuals seem to want to do today."
What does that even mean, "they didn't work to destroy the Church..."?
The majority of victims of clerical abuse in modern times, along with their families, have been Catholic. Of course "they didn't work to destroy the Church."
They are "the Church."
"The majority of victims of clerical abuse in modern times, along with their families, have been Catholic. Of course "they didn't work to destroy the Church."
Which is why I said, "They did not want to profit from their or their children's being victimized, and they didn't work to destroy the Church for the sins of individuals as some few individuals seem to want to do today."
Note "..some FEW individuals."
Post a Comment