Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

On the field and before the television  Penn State fans and team behaved themselves.

On Saturday, as the clock struck noon at Beaver Stadium, both the good and the bad sides of Penn State were on display. Inside the towering football cathedral—where more than 100,000 Nittany Lions worshippers gathered for the first game of the post-Paterno [...]

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Part of the outrage over McQueary’s failure to stop the child rape he was witnessing is caused by the sense that he violated the canons of masculinity. A male’s strength is given to him to protect the weak. If he fails to do that, even if he did not technically violate a law, he has [...]

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McQueary claims he in fact did not act like an utter wimp:
A grand jury report said McQueary witnessed seeing Sandusky, the team’s former defensive coordinator, sexually assaulting the boy in a shower on campus, then reported it only to his father and head coach Joe Paterno. According to the report, McQueary did not notify law [...]

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The editor of America, Father James Martin, discusses the grandiosity of narcissists who are abusers. But his words also apply to their enablers:
In my experience, after the conviction or removal from office or ministry, those two qualities merge in the person with terrible consequences. And these consequences make it far more difficult for the institution [...]

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From The Washington Times
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — In the middle of Curtin Road, John Matko held one handwritten sign in his right hand and rested another against his jeans. Two inches of black tape obscured Penn State’s logo on the 34-year-old father’s hat, as he tried to ignore the jeers, slaps and beer hurled at [...]

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The university administration certainly conspired to cover up Sandusky’s abuse, but was he also pimping kids to rich pedophile donors?
Probably not, but there is a possibility it could be true.
There are rings and networks of pedophiles. How they network is a great mystery to the agents of the law, but they definitely network and have [...]

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We are supposed to be living in a heterosexualist culture which leads men to “patrol sexual boundaries” involving sexual contact between males. This was lacking at Penn State.
Alfred Doblin of The Record asks:
For starters, what the hell was wrong with Mike McQueary? A 28-year-old man allegedly sees a 10-year-old boy being sexually assaulted and walks [...]

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There’s my daddy. Let me ask him what I should do.

Mike McQueary, the 28-year-old aspiring coach at Penn State,  the  one who saw Sandusky butt-fucking a ten-year-old boy, left the scene of the crime and called his daddy. McQueary needs to take remedial masculinity courses.
DeeGee suggests this as a scenario that should be studied in [...]

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A sister of one of Sandusky’s victims is a student at Penn State. The Patriot-News reports

In a parallel universe, going to class might be a nice distraction, to get her mind off the chaos surrounding the arrest of the man accused of molesting her brother.
But not as a junior at Penn State, where students are [...]

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According to DeadSpin

the grand jury report identifies one of them as a victim of Sandusky
and
Sandusky’s victims all reported a wide array of sexual abuse allegations. Sandusky, who is married, met many of them through The Second Mile. Many spent the night at his home. He brought them to Philadelphia Eagles games, plus Penn State practices, [...]

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The Board of Trustees at Penn State University has fired both the president Spanier and the legendary coach Paterno for their failure to act legally and ethically in handling the allegations of child abuse against Sandusky.
Note the contrast to the Vatican, which has NEVER removed a bishop for similar failures.
The behavior of the coaches and [...]

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Get Religion has gathered some interesting stories on research on possible physical and genetic causes for pedophilia, that is, for a desire to have sex with children.
This is a scientific question, and I am unqualified to make any pronouncement on it.
But if pedophilia is genetically determined, and therefore “natural,” those who argue that any genetically [...]

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The Bishops will no doubt take comfort in the Canadian belief that punishment is not the proper response to sexual abuse. The National Post reports:

As North America’s top experts on sex abuse gather in Toronto this week, a philosophical debate about how to treat some of society’s most reviled criminals is coming into stark [...]

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Joe asked:

Leon, how have the Scouts followed up on this, since the incident is at least 30 years old? Are stricter controls in place? Do the Scouts now have a policy of informing the police if one of their leaders molests a Scout?

I was a scout leader in my sons’ troop, but I have not [...]

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This is what the CBC found that Turley had done:

In 1975, Turley did what he describes as the “craziest, stupid, bizarre thing” he would ever do. California newspaper headlines from 1975 dubbed it a “wild abduction tale.”
In a stolen single-engine Cessna, Turley kidnapped Ed Iris, an 11-year-old Nova Scotia boy living in La Puente, Calif., [...]

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