I spent the weekend in shock and surprise over the outpouring of grief and accolades for Joe Paterno. Before I go into my screed I\u2019ll save you all some time:\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Biblical quote most of you will throw at me is, \u201cJudge not, lest ye be judged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fair enough. \u00a0Did you read the next part of that bit of Matthew 7:1, \u201c\u00a0Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2<\/strong>\u00a0For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n Fair enough. I\u2019m willing to take that text on its words and do a bit of judging, as I\u2019m as pure as the driven snow on the subject of child molestation\/rape and the shielding of predators who victimize children.<\/p>\n \u00a0I cannot know what Joe Paterno had in his heart. To the best of my knowledge he\u2019s in Heaven at the foot of Christ for eternity. He made good with God before he went and he\u2019s got a mansion on one of the better streets.<\/p>\n \u00a0But I\u2019m pretty sure of one thing: while he was on this earth, by his own admission, he harbored a child rapist in his midst and continued to grant the man access to the special privileges and power that came with the Penn State football program. I can only surmise that it was to avoid interfering with his football program and leave it at that.<\/p>\n One of the foulest comments I read this weekend was from a man who is in a position of authority and trust over children.\u00a0 He said, \u201cOnce he [Paterno] told the Athletic Director it was off his plate.\u201d<\/p>\n REALLY? Excuse me while I finish being sick. So, if I\u2019m working at a mall as Santa, and the photographer on the set tells me that they saw the early shift Santa molesting children all I have to do is tell the photo manager?\u00a0 Whew, I was afraid I\u2019d have to protect those silly children and go to the police.\u00a0 Thank you for that out!\u00a0 I cannot believe how easy that one just got.<\/p>\n IFyou know of something like this are you obligated to take it to the authorities?\u00a0 If your assistant coach\/grad student\/jock-strap collector\/minion comes to you with a story like Paterno heard, do you go to your boss, or do you frog-march that person to the police and make them tell their story? What if they don’t want to tell the police?\u00a0 Then you fire them because they either lied to you or are such a wretched piece of detritus that you cannot bear to be with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sadly, in this case, it probably wouldn’t make any difference, as the cops and D.A. had already had reports of Sandusky molesting children and ignored them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m heading way out on the limb here, so feel free to hang back closer to the tree trunk if you need to do so for your own mental health. It is my opinion, as a former police officer, a professional Santa Claus, as an ordained Chaplain, and a card-carrying human that everyone involved in this disgusting chain of events who did not do the utmost possible to put an end to it and see those children protected needs to be prosecuted. If the people involved did not say, \u201cWell, your answer isn’t satisfactory,\u00a0I have evidence of a crime against this child and I\u2019m blowing this thing wide open\u201d then they are culpable and should be punished.<\/p>\n 61 years of football glory versus 1 second of ignoring the raping of a little boy.\u00a0 I\u2019m putting the scale of import to the right on that one and saying the football is irrelevant. Paterno couldn\u2019t go back in time and fix what had happened, but he sure could have prevented what was to come in the future.\u00a0 One commentator noted that \u201cPaterno was always there for his kids.\u201d<\/p>\n No, not for at least one of them.\u00a0 Not for one who wasn\u2019t a big, tough, college athlete.\u00a0 This one was a grade school aged child who was brutally raped and ignored. No, \u201cJoe Pa\u201d wasn\u2019t there for all<\/span><\/em><\/strong> the kids.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the point I\u2019m trying to make.<\/p>\n So, before we talk about football glory, historic records, gifted talent and a legacy, let\u2019s remember that one little boy who\u2019s life was forever changed because \u201cit was off his plate\u201d once he\u2019d told the Athletic Director.<\/p>\n Not the same scale in any way, but didn\u2019t we learn our lesson in the aftermath of WWII?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t the Nuremburg trials tell us that following orders and the chain of command did not exonerate us from guilt and complicity?<\/p>\n Pray for Paterno\u2019s family. Pray for Paterno. But pray for all those children who nobody protects and nobody believes in this world.\u00a0 And be Courageous in your heart should you encounter a similar situation.\u00a0 You may be the only one in a position to stop the evil that is rape and child molestation.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll end with another quotation from the Bible.\u00a0 I think it may\u00a0explain my anger and disgust over this whole thing, in as much as Jesus seems to feel just like I do on the topic:<\/p>\n \u00a0Matt 18:1-6 (KJV)<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201c1<\/strong>\u00a0At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2<\/strong>\u00a0And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3<\/strong>\u00a0And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4<\/strong>\u00a0Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5<\/strong>\u00a0And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6<\/strong>\u00a0But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that<\/em> he were drowned in the depth of the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n That is all, please resume the normal nonsense that occurs on this blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I spent the weekend in shock and surprise over the outpouring of grief and accolades for Joe Paterno. Before I go into my screed I\u2019ll save you all some time:\u00a0 The Biblical quote most of you will throw at me …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17,295,86,167,75,293,299,162,298,296,297,294,300],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sincere-stuff","tag-bible","tag-child-molestation","tag-children","tag-commotion-in-the-pews","tag-jesus","tag-joe-pa","tag-joe-paterno","tag-joseph-courtemanche","tag-matthew-71","tag-penn-state","tag-predators","tag-rape","tag-victimize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}