Sexual Abuse Cases in LA Reach Settlement

According to the New York Times, the massive church sex abuse case in Los Angeles is finally coming to an end:

Lawyers for more than 500 people who say they were abused by Roman Catholic clergy members said last night that they had settled their lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for $660 million. If approved, it will be by far the largest payout made by any single diocese since the clergy sexual abuse scandals first became public in Boston in 2002. It will dwarf the $85 million paid for 552 claims by the Archdiocese of Boston.

Later in the day, Cardinal Mahony apologized to people for the Catholic Church's crimes:

"There really is no way to go back and give them the innocence that was taken from them ... The one thing I wish I could give the victims, I cannot -- and that is a restoration to where they were originally."

Words escape me when I try to express the horror I feel at such a thing. More than 500 people filed lawsuits. That's 500 lives that were unspeakably impacted by the sick minds and crimes of others. Five hundred lives whose minds will be forever changed, who will never live a normal, unfettered life. Five hundred stories of heartbreak, anger, and despair. And that's just the people who filed a lawsuit. And that's just in Los Angeles.

Someone on Digg pointed out something obvious that I didn't really think of: None of that money is coming from the Vatican; instead it's coming from people's donations, their tithes. This is assuredly not what God had in mind when he asked us to give a tenth of what we earn to further His kingdom.

What drives a priest to molest a child? What drives his superiors, presumably men of God, to cover up the crimes? I don't really have a good answer for the second one, but in answer to the first one, to paraphrase a radio DJ I once heard, this seems like a possible expected outcome when you tell people not to have sex and stick them in a small room all the time where other people are forced to tell them their deepest darkest sins and secrets.

In Mark chapter 9, Jesus says the following:

And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

Amen to that. Amen to that...

Nifong Disbarred; Media Leaves Duke Lacrosse Story, Misses Amazing Opportunity To Improve Public Discourse

(From Flickr user digital image fan via CC)

The backlash against Mike Nifong, the DA in the Duke Lacrosse Case, has started in earnest...and WHAT a backlash it is. According to the Associated Press:

Nifong was disbarred Saturday, a ruling that came one day after he stunned his staff and own attorneys by announcing through tears he planned to resign as Durham County's district attorney. In imposing punishment, a disciplinary committee called Nifong's prosecution of Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann a politically motivated "fiasco." The five-day ethics trial ended Nifong's three-decade legal career, which he spent entirely as a prosecutor in Durham County. He was generally viewed as an honest lawyer...

The list of misdeeds that Nifong has been accused of (and undoubtedly actually did) is long and shocking. He withheld exculpatory evidence. He made inappropriate statements to the public about the case. He pressed on with the case even when he knew that there was no way he could win a conviction. And that's just off the top of my head (Go to Nifong's wikipedia page for some more details).

Part of me feels for this man, whose career has now ended in a spectacular flameout. However, a part of me also knows that the men who were accused of the rape have had a bad enough time these past few years that Nifong's disgrace is probably nothing in comparison. It's both refreshing and terrifying that we live in a country where being accused of being a rapist can be almost as bad as being convicted of the same thing.

Now ABC reports that, with regards to the case, the media is packing up its bags and moving on:

The word on the street around Duke University is that the Duke lacrosse story has outlived its shelf life...Despite interest in the story, it looks like the media parade is leaving. "The high intensity moments are over," Setrakian said. Edmisten said the chairman of the hearing in the case referred to the events as a dangerous soap opera. So, while further legal movement in the case may be in store, at least for the residents of Durham, this show is fading to black.

Here's why this gets me: By packing up leaving in the aftermath right now, at this critical moment when Nifong is finally being punished for his crimes, the media demonstrates yet again how it is beholden to sensationalism, and ultimately, to profit. To many of you (and even to me), this is old news. But I couldn't resist bringing it up anyway.

Not only that, but the media is missing an amazing opportunity to engage in public discourse about the litany of deeper issues underlying the Duke case. The reason they latched onto the rape case in the first place was because it was a spectacular attention-grabber: three white preppy, elite lacross players (a sport which seems to epitomize the upper class) from a top-tier university brutally assaulted a black, lower-class single mom who went to a state school. There were a lot of issues this case brought up, and a lot of fires that it stoked. It was a case that brought up struggles and conflicts that have haunted us throughout our country's history: namely, the conflict of the upper class against the lower class, the race issues between whites and blacks, and, to tie it all together, the destructive psychological devastation of rape.

But now that the case is over, there are different questions that we should be asking. Questions like why do we live in a society where being accused of rape is as bad as being convicted (i.e. where the media has grossly asymmetric rules about who it can name and who it can't)? Where the media (even the New York Times) can actively and powerfully propagate such destructive misinformation and get away with it without being held to account? Where lawyers yield such tremendous power over all of us in the form of prosecutorial discretion?

Unfortunately, the media won't be asking those questions, not to any meaningful extent anyway. The reasons for this are legion, but up at the top of the list I'm sure are both a lack of desire to criticize itself and the endless and self-defeating quest for ratings. To ask these questions would require an informed dialogue and citizenry, a level of public discourse that challenges deeply held assumptions and uses logic and reason behind its arguments. And really, if they did address these issues on TV, is there really anyone who would watch?





[Note: To paraphrase Sideshow Bob, I'm aware of the irony of using an article on ABC News reporting on the media in order to report about the media, so don't bother pointing that out]