A Few Words Archives - Half Formed Thoughts 7/17/02

A Tale of Two Scandals

There’s no doubt that the Catholic Church is offering prayers of thanksgiving for the accounting industry right now. For while the American populace likes to imagine itself as a caring, compassionate collective, the reality of the situation is that its compassion for the young, mostly anonymous victims of child abuse quickly fades into the background when 401(k) accounts start dropping faster than the Red Sox in June.

The real difference between the two scandals is made perfectly clear by the reaction of the politicians to them. Republicans and Democrats alike are presently locked into a catfight to prove who can come down the hardest on the perpetrators of corporate fraud. Every day someone else proposes new legislation to make sure those guilty of deceiving investors will be punished with a severity previously reserved for Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and Pete Rose. These is a constant murmuring from Washington over a need to change the systemic problems which created an atmosphere which tempted otherwise good and moral CEO’s (ha!) into twisting numbers to make themselves look good.

But where was the call from politicians for jail time for the otherwise good and moral Catholic Bishops (ha!) who looked the other way and reassigned serial child molesters into new assignments? Some have claimed that it’s because the politicians fear the backlash from Catholic voters if they prosecute the church hierarchy. I say it’s the opposite. I would hope that most Catholics would support legal action against those who, in my mind, are every bit as guilty of child abuse as those who actually touched a child inappropriately.

Oh, sure, the Pope and the Bishops have had their little conferences and signed their document condemning the abuse. They can say they’ve implemented new procedures to prevent further abuse. But the fact that they’ve failed to point the finger at themselves proves that they don’t realize that the problem wasn’t the abuse, but the very structure of the church which allowed the abusers to be given unlimited chances.

The silence and shame of the victims of child abuse, and their understandable desire to forget the abuse ever happened and go on with their lives, will allow the non-accountable church power structure to weather this storm relatively unscathed. Most of the priests’ victims have abandoned the Catholic Church, and have quite a bit of trouble still believing in God. And who can blame them? The Catholic Church wants people to believe that it is the one and only path to salvation. If a child is taught that the church is the Bride of Christ, and his only experience with it is through the genitals of a priest, is it any wonder that any subsequent religious experience becomes impossible?

And, since the victims of church abuse are no longer members of the church, the calls for reform from within are only coming second and third hand. The laity of the church will be therefore given lip service, and then things will go back to exactly the way it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

Meanwhile, it’s precisely the fear of reprisal from the victims of the accounting scandals which is driving the need for accounting reform. The percentage of Americans who own stock is at an all-time high. Workers are watching their portfolios sinking, and senior citizens are watching their retirement funds evaporating. The stockbrokers and the AARP desperately need to be able to trust the numbers on which they base their financial decisions. They also, non-coincidentally, have a lot of money with which to finance political campaigns. Therefore, any betrayal of their trust leads to a call for swift and severe reprisal, and a sweeping reform of the entire power structure which allows those crimes to take place and be ignored for many years. If you destroy a large number of investors’ net worths, you can expect to be punished, and you can expect that things will change to prevent it from happening again.

But children don’t have millions of dollars to donate to political action committees. So if you destroy a child’s self worth, you can expect a small amount of bad press, and some vilification which can easily be dismissed as the biased slants of those who were already against you. And after the storm dies down, you can go back to your ivory cathedral and forget anything ever happened.

It’s sort of sad that we in America care more about justice when it affects our ability to retire to Florida than when it affects the souls of our children. But it’s always been so. If you don’t believe me, just ask Kathie Lee Gifford.

Email Steve with any comments at aenor@aurora.mv.com