TOPICS:
Clergy Abuses — Abuses of Clergy
Apr 18, 2012 / Written by: Gary Isbell
In recent years the media have been vicious in their attacks against the Catholic clergy for even the slightest hint of sexual abuse that have come to light. However, the same media have been almost unconcerned when it comes to practically identical abuse cases.
A case of non-reaction happened right under the nose of the investigative reporters for The Boston Globe. The principal of King K-8 School, Jessica Bolt, received a complaint from a parent that a teacher’s aide at the school had inappropriate contact with a student. 1
Bolt claims to have investigated the complaint by interviewing the parent, the student and the aide, and then arbitrarily deciding that there was insufficient information to pursue disciplinary action against the aide. Bolt failed to report the aide to the police, and he transferred the aide to another school where he was reportedly caught in the act of abusing a special needs student. To teachers who are familiar with this problem it is referred to as, “passing the trash.”
The Globe did not carry a 2,500-word front-page article about this case. However, Globe reporter Michael Rezendes did write two front-page articles, complete with color photos about a ten-year-old case concerning a former Jesuit priest from Chicago, Donald McGuire. In this case, the liberal media have taken the Church to task for doing exactly the same thing that principal Jessica Bolt did. However, there is not great effort to expose how public schools handle sexually abusive teachers. Why the double standard?
In a excellent study titled “Educator Sexual Misconduct,”2 Dr. Charol Shakeshaft, Professor and Department Chair of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, concluded that "ten percent of American students are victims of sexual misconduct by public school employees each year.” Furthermore, "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."
Dr. Shakeshaft’s report also contained elements from an earlier study done in 1994 indicating that not one single case of the 225 documented and admitted cases of teacher sexual abuse in New York state in the early 1990s, was reported to the police. Why is this not front-page news in The New York Times? If even one case is too many for Catholic priests (and indeed it is), what about 225 cases for public school teachers?
The City of New York has been paying more than $40,000,000 in salaries annually to teachers not to teach, many of who have been charged with sexual molestation of students, and they still have no background checks in place for new teachers. 3 In 2010 a former prostitute actually received tenure even after her previous lifestyle was disclosed. Compare this to the frenzy made over Catholic clergy accused of supposed crimes from 50 years ago that were gleaned from repressed memories or even those levied against priests that never existed! Despite the lack of objective reporting done by the Globe et. al., the church has much less of a problem today than other secular or religious institutions.
A 2010 U.S. Department of Education survey on clergy abuse only turned up a total of seven credible, still unproven, allegations against over 40,000 priests.
While our liberal media is quite content to bash the Church and promote the homosexual agenda every opportunity it finds, it turns a blind eye to the sexual abuse scandals happening elsewhere continuing to demonstrate its overwhelming hypocrisy when it comes to objective reporting. Perhaps this is why newsprint is the fastest shrinking industry in the country today.
References:
