Jerry Sandusky Found Guilty, and Too, Philly Jury re Pedophile Sexual Assault on Children, Finds Monsignor William J. Lynn Guilty of Child Endangerment
It’s the first prelate in the Catholic Church to be tried and to be found guilty of not protecting children from sexual predators.
The case was complicated by the prosecutors trying several priests at once. But, given the Vatican and Diocese’s huge money outlay for many many lawyers eager to have the jury find all the priest-defendents innocent, that money outlay in defense was not successful regarding Msgr. Lynn.
(The vast amounts of money for legal defense does not come from the Bishops’ own personal accounts. It comes from the parishioners who are often of modest means or poor. And these bottomless pits of money are used to cover the huge expenses to defend wrongdoing… about something that should have been taken care of long ago, by one simple gesture: Calling law enforcement down on priests who intruded on children sexually.)
Sandusky and Lynn this week, both defended to the hilt. It creates such head-shaking amongst many, wondering why. Why? Why?
And then, How? Across the nation, across the world, how could men (Paterno and others) in team sports, how could consecrated men in a heavy regalia’s hierarchy think turning in a man forcing and seducing children to have sex, was wrong to report to law enforcement and criminal justice authorities.
This includes the often heard trope from bishops, that criminally or even ethically pursing and shutting down pedophile priests who had intruded on children would be somehow ‘harmful to Mother Church,’
…and therefore the bishops ordered that the criminal priests just be moved around, hiding their deeds, or putting them into vapid and completely ineffective ‘therapy’ for their clear-cut crimes.
And thereby the bishops, archbishops, cardinals, monsignors, Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger (who is now Pope), not to mention Cardinal Bernard Law who shuffled pedophile priests all over Boston, endangered year after year after year, more and more little ones. Little innocent children. So much for ‘suffer the children to come to me’ regarding NO protection for the vulnerable children from the men in black and red robes.
The Assange-like leaked papers from Vatican in the last couple weeks (not to mention the weird dark-ages draconian ‘jailing’ of Benedict’s assistant in the Vatican, as ”the butler/valet/assistant/” appears to be one of several insiders in the Vat smuggling confidential papers and communiques to the press) as well as never before seen tax records, emails, secret under the table communiques that have been demanded by courts in cases of law suits by those who were sexually intruded upon as children…
all have caused a tipping point some time ago… by hiding pedophile priests in order to “protect Mother Church” many see now that not Mother Church, but many of the ‘fathers’ running it all, are not honest.
(not even mentioning the US bishops currently acting as an arm of the GOP whilst continuing to enjoy their lavish tax exempt status, and taking literally billions of dollars from every taxpayer in the USA via Federal and State government handouts to the Catholics, to subsidize their health and hospital programs, schools and onward.)
Jerry Sandusky, Monsignor Lynn, were found guilty of crime devastating to little children. But the crimes of many others of the sports’ world and the Catholic Church across the world, have yet to be set into sunshine, the great disinfectant.
You can read more on the mixed outcome of the Lynn trial here.
CODA
Lynn is the first Roman Catholic church official in the U.S. ever charged with child endangerment, for allegedly keeping co-defendants former priest Edward V. Avery and the Rev. James J. Brennan, and other accused predators, in ministry. But a Monsignor is far below a Bishop or Archbishop who are ‘the buck stops here’ accountable figures in the diocesan hierarchy.
Because the jury could not come to clear decisions in first round deliberation, and because of the acquittals, in additional to the Guilty verdict for Lynn, this case may go on with appeals for decades. Also, Lynn may have been thrown to the wolves to avoid putting a Bishop or Archbishop on trial. The vast amounts of money to appeal and appeal, will also come from the collection plates of the poor and moderate income parishioners. The appeals will be seen as paramount for the solidly GOP (by virtue of his published book) Archbishop of that Philly diocese (Chaput), in an effort to try to head off other Monsignors, priests, bishops and archbishops from being tried as both perpetrators and accessories to crimes.
It may also be prudent to note that the flap by the US Bishops about ‘birth control’ in the thus far ‘fantasy’ healthcare new world, is a loud howl by the prelates of ‘look at how you’re persecuting us’ when in fact so so many of the hierarchy have been verifiably complicit in crimes and abject and relentless persecutions of children.
Having read some of the malignant and accusatory letters from the hierarchy to distraught parents regarding their children, (claiming father so and so is a perfectly fine man, and there must be something wrong with the child and the parents) there should be a psychopathological diagnostic category called “Abject disregard for the human life of a child”.
Oddly, like pedophilia, so too with people who are psychopaths, we know of no cure to build normative conscience into such persons who have none. Both put themselves and their own interests above those of vulnerable others. That may wind up being the greater clue in the sports world and in the Roman Catholic hierarchy about the root issue that is rarely spoken about. Mental and characterological disorders in all directions.
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Dr. E. thanks for speaking so clear and and powerful on this one… Each time you dare to go to these places, there is a deepening….It has been somewhat easier to understand the sickness of the pedophile priest and coaches than the ones that covered up with all their use of ‘performance enhancing’ lies. The two together; pedophiles and pedophile defenders in the highest places in our society and religious institutions is Lord of the Flies magnified. I recently went back and read the Lord of the Flies by William Golding and M.Scott Peck’s People of the Lie, in relation to the Priest scandal…There is a good fit with many of the characters as well as the theme of unchecked evil…. The pedophile priest are sick and the ones that cover up fall over the cliff into malignant narcissism as defined by Peck.
Dr. E. i am going to supply a link which leads to a number of quotes by Peck from People of the Lie. Would you see what has happened with the Priest and Sandusky scandal as being malignant narcissism/evil?
” It is necessary that we first draw the distinction between evil and ordinary sin. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people…The central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.” from People of the Lie, M.Scott Peck.
http://www.geftakysassembly.com/Articles/Perspectives/MalignantNarcissism.htm
Dear Sparrow: if evil is the abandonment of the vulnerable young, evil is not a good enough word. Malignant narcissism is part of a brace of symptoms of Sociopathic behavior. For me personally, the lack of demonstrated conscience, lac of sustained genuine sorrow, lack of sincere consciousness over prior lack of, are the telling points. Criminal is the word that comes to mind. So does spiritual crimes against the human child.
Contrast, for me, is Archbishop Tutu at the ‘reconciliation hearings’ listening to crime after crime, so much so, he fainted from the sorrow, from the grief of it all.
There is no such sin-eater in sports or in church. The quickness to circle the wagons, to exonerate the guilty, to exonerate the persons who are accessories to the crimes, to literally remove prelates from the reach of prosecutors by spiriting them away from the USA to Rome and purposely out of reach of the las of the land… prevents not only healing of the entire community to occur at much higher consciousness, but also coddles perpetrators so they multiply thinking they are in a fortified safe haven.
I agree with almost all of what you wrote. The sole exception is Joe Paterno. He was crucified in the press for…what?
“He didn’t call the police!” Well…no he didn’t, but then he didn’t witness any crime either. He got an accusation and did what he had been told (probably time after time after time over perhaps 40+ years) to do when given such allegations–HE TOLD HIS SUPERVISORS!
What part of hear-say do people not understand. Paterno could have gone to the police and they would actually have been in trouble if they arrested Sandusky on Paterno’s word alone–he didn’t witness anything!
I hear your point R. And, in ethics, which is higher than the law, teachers, coaches, etc are required to report even allegations when it comes to underage children. I think of what many of us would have done had we heard a credible person tell us he saw a grown man sexually molesting a ten year old child in a shower on the school premises in the sports dept. It wouldnt have been what Joe Paterno did, who imo showed grotesque neglect and disregard for the life of a young soul, in not pursuing a credible allegation. It isnt likely that a person who cares for children would just report to the school admin or school patrol, and then forget. Would you? I dont think so. i think you would pursue it to the max, who was this child by name, where are his parents, find his parents, what the hell is sandusky doing really, call an inquiry on sandusky, call social services and city police/ law enforcement stat. I realize many loved Mr. Paterno. But/ and Mr Paterno spent years supposedly in service of building the character of young men. His action and inactions in no way square with that.