Separated at birth: clerical and athletic cultures

In fairness to you readers, for those who are unfamiliar with the author of this piece, learn about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kennedy. I do not disagree with everything in this article, but I found it interesting that this college professor conveniently left out the "education culture" even though it's been shown that there is a very high level of sex abuse in that realm too.

Somehow, we must all realize that public status/achievement has virtually no connection with private behavior/illness. The most talented preacher, coach, or teacher can be a child molester.

David Clohessy, Director, SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, (7234 Arsenal Street, St. Louis MO 63143), 314 566 9790 cell (SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

I have long since thought that the church and the military followed the same paridigm-ever since a former high school student of mine, now a colonel in the army, asked me to read the script of a power point she was preparing on disaster relief, post 9/11. As I slogged through the verbiage trying to adhere to her most important directive, "It has be be understandable to non-military personnel," I was brought back to times when I tried to put into everyday words passages from some of the encyclicals and pastoral letters for my students. For both groups, more is definately more. Not to mention the don't ask/don't tell culture, as well as the sense that higher ups are never obligated to explain themselves to those "beneath" them. The contracts for Catholic school teachers in my diocese even states that a teacher can be terminated without explanation. Oh where is Jesus on his knees serving the apostles when you need him???

Having researched the area of clergy sex abuse for a several years, myself and those who have helped in my research have noted a great deal of similarity between the situations at Penn State and Syracuse and the prevailing way, sex abuse has been handled in the Catholic Church. Two common elements emerge 1) almost all of the abusers are serial offenders,with at least five incidents to their "credit",2) and at least ten people usually knew about the multiple incidents before the abuse became public. It is still difficult to get the abused to come forward. One priest that I have known about for 40 years recently died and no formal complaint was ever brought to the relevant hierarch (actually an eparch).

This is an excellent analysis .. as far as it goes. However its focus on clergy and athletes ignores the leeway accorded by the public and particularly the legal system to the entertainment and media stars whose much publicised moral degeneracy is celebrated and lionized ad nasuseam. At least it seems that the majority of clergy and athletes have some understandung of right and wrong,some sense of shame, but it seems that most of our entertainers flaunt their perversions and are rewarded (at leasr financially) for them.

Kennedy is not absolving the education profession. He is commenting on the current news. If teachers were in the news along with pathetic coaches and preists, Kennedy would have included them.

Sexual abuse is a crime.
Do not become an enabler by making excuses or "covering" for the criminals who perpetrate these acts.
Bring complaints directly to the police, not to church, school, or athletic authorities.

"Kennedy is not absolving the education profession. He is commenting on the current news. If teachers were in the news along with pathetic coaches and preists, Kennedy would have included them."

No. Teachers are in the news. On the back pages. The premise of his article is about how there are "cultures" of abuse. He points to only sports and the Church. In fact, the "culture" is all around us. It's not encompassed by particular group or groups. Teachers likely have the most cases of this type of abuse...and yet I would not say it is a result of the teacher "culture". It's a result of opportunity.

I am a little surprised that Kennedy included faculty members in his list of persons in "the academy" who are responsible for letting the college athletic cultures "off the hook" with regard to the misbehavior of the athletes and their leaders. As a faculty member at a major university (which, by the way, it not particularly involved in high stakes athletics), I have found that many faculty members bemoan the special rights which accrue to athletes. Many of us, especially when we were younger and did not have tenure, have experienced pressure from athletic coaches, directors, and other administrators every time we had a student in class who was not performing satisfactorily and whose presence on a team or at a particular game was "so critical" to the "welfare of the university" -- that it demanded the instructor make "special arrangements" to ensure his presence on the field or the court. (Yes, the use of the gender-specific pronoun is appropriate here; rarely does this occur with women's sports.) Faculty complain about it to each other. It does little good to mention it to administrators. Older faculty members are generally "off the hook" also; once they have tenure, the coaches simply tell the athletes to avoid their classes, since they have little power over them. Hence I have heard many faculty complain that that athletics are one area in which faculty involvement was largely ineffective.

"Clerical culture is dying, but the athletic culture, with its spoiled stars, its greedy agents and pharaoh-like owners, walk unquestioned, as though they were our benefactors, through our culture."

I respect the wisdom of Dr Kennedy. However, I do not believe that clerical culture is dying.

In my experience as a part-time student in pastoral studies at a Jesuit University, some of my fellow students complain that it is the young priest in their parish that is hard to work with, rather than the older priests.

The young priests are being trained to be princes rather than servant-leaders of the church. This bodes poorly for the future of the Roman Catholic Church, unless the teaching in the seminaries change.

Sincerely, Dr Rosemary Eileen McHugh

Far more evident is the "clericalism" and triumphalism of that small clique of (usually)liberal lay people who atually run most parishes today...