Comments on: When the cover-up is almost as despicable as the crime

By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:16:44 +0000

Hi Bev – you’re not alone; many have also questioned this. The best explanation I’ve heard concerns the pervasive “football culture” that was allowed to flourish at Penn (and at most other U.S. colleges). This hero worship – known as “the Penn State way” – was partly responsible for those who knew about the Sandusky crimes NOT coming forward: the “too big to fail” nonsense, along with widespread tolerance for intolerable behaviour of athletes off the field, and for the lack of well-established “student code of conduct” enforcement when it came to sports team members who felt entitled to avoid facing the consequences of their individual actions. In the last decade alone, 27 Penn players have been convicted of or have pleaded guilty to a combined 45 criminal charges, for example. Former Director of Student Affairs Vicky Triponey explained it very clearly here.

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By: Bev RN

Bev RN — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:01:39 +0000

Another comment about Penn State. Sorry if I’m too far afield. I wonder if anyone feels the way I do, though.

I seem to be in a decided minority of one, according to everything I read, in that I don’t understand why the consequences of the crimes of Sandusky and Paterno and others should fall on the school and the sport and thus, on the students.

A shocking number of individuals from Penn State allowed this abuse to go on, but the school, as an entity, did not. Neither did any students, much less all the students. The football team did nothing wrong, either. Why are the students and those in particular who are involved in sports, especially football, being punished?

I’m no football fan nor am I in favor of spending such massive amounts of a school’s money on sports, but this isn’t about that. The students are paying the price for these awful crimes and yet they were either just innocent bystanders or they were victims. I think this is very unjust and bothers me more than a little. It seems the blame is being spread waaaay out where it has no place whatsoever.

So why are students paying for other people’s crimes? Am I missing something?

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By: Bev RN

Bev RN — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:48:34 +0000

Is there some reason there weren’t major double height headlines in all the newspapers about the pope’s hand in all this horrible business? Why did I have to happen upon a 1 inch nugget of info on the pope and then have it vanish so thoroughly that I thought maybe I dreamed it?

Another question: Does anyone know if the nuns had any knowledge of this? How did they cope with being a nun in the midst of priests who were doing such awful things – molesting boys and allowing molesting priests to molest boys? How can they tolerate knowing their own pope was in on the whole awful mess?

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:09:07 +0000

Oh, me too. Don’t even get me started on those evil nuns with “a feminist spirit” and “secular mentality” who need to be tracked down and openly punished, compared to predator priests whose criminal activity is both tolerated and covered up by the very church officials who are interrogating the nuns. Why any thinking person would continue to support this morally corrupt religion is quite beyond my comprehension…

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:04:17 +0000

Yes, the Pope himself has been implicated, as I wrote here: “Abuse claims investigated in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where Pope Benedict was then Archbishop Ratzinger from 1977 – 1982, reveal that he dealt with a priest accused of child molestation by sending him to therapy and then allowing him to resume pastoral duties, at which time he was again accused of molestation and finally prosecuted.”

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By: Bev RN

Bev RN — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 04:27:33 +0000

And going after the nuns – that’s gotta be an effort to distract people – ya think? Get people’s minds off the precious priests and bare their teeth at the nuns? The NERVE of that nun, saving that woman’s life and all. How dare she! Oh this is a hot topic for me. These people make my blood boil.

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By: Bev RN

Bev RN — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 04:24:08 +0000

Thank you! I could have SWORN I read the pope was right in with the rest of the guys in the great cover-up! I read it in my newspaper but just one small – tiny, really – mention, then POOF! Silence, until I began to wonder if I dreamed it up. Is it too much for even the non-Catholic public to stand? To hear that even the pope sheltered and passed around these pedophiles?

Why isn’t anyone talking about this? That is, about the pope specifically? I say, throw him and all of them in the slammer where every child molester belongs! And I consider anyone covering up and passing on a molester to be a molester himself. Why aren’t we prosecuting more of these creeps? At least the ones who aren’t dead or have dementia. So many in that camp, this going back such a long, long time.

Makes me sick.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:17:22 +0000

Amen, sister! !

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By: Leslie

Leslie — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:12:14 +0000

Carolyn, I always enjoy reading your thoughts which are much like mine.

I was raised Catholic and am not a practicing one. My Parents are devout Catholics. The Nuns I know have been upset about what is coming out of the Vatican. The Catholic Nuns are the moral authority left in the Church. They should be running it. The Vatican is totally out of touch with reality.

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By: investigator25

investigator25 — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:48:41 +0000

That was an act that only hurt you and your Mom, it didn’t take anyone’s life, alter anyone’s life.

Good analysis of the situation.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:31:42 +0000

Maybe it’s an innate urge? When I was a little girl, I accidentally broke a coffee cup but instead of just ‘fessing up’ to my mother, I wrapped the broken pieces in a towel and hid them (in a stupid place! on top of the fridge – where my Mum soon found my “evidence”). The difference: I was just nine years old and not a mature adult engaging in illegal cover up of criminal activity.

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