Same Crimes, Different Outcries | Cary McMullen

It’s interesting to contrast reactions to two judgments handed down this week for nearly identical crimes. The reactions speak volumes about our priorities.

On Monday, the NCAA announced Penn State would be fined $60 million, lose football scholarships and be banned from bowl games for four years for the institution’s failure to report child sex abuse that officials – including head football coach Joe Paterno – knew was being committed by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Some pronounced the punishment just, but in other quarters there was a huge outcry. The NCAA was too harsh, it was punishing innocent players, it was tarnishing the image of a coach who ran one of the cleanest programs in college football. Although Sandusky’s crimes against children were conceded as horrible, punishing the school for a cover-up by its leaders was somehow considered out-of-bounds.

Now consider the other judgment, handed down the very next day against Monsignor William Lynn of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Lynn, the staff member responsible for looking into charges of child sex abuse by priests, was sentenced to three to six years in prison for felony child endangerment. In the case of the Rev. Edward Avery, Lynn covered up credible evidence that the priest had molested a boy and then assigned that priest to a church where he assaulted an altar boy.

Lynn’s attorney and the archdiocese called the sentence unfair. Anybody else rush to his defense? Uh-uh.

Two institutions. A similar crime – covering up child sexual abuse to protect an institution. Committed around the same time and only 200 miles apart. Yet utterly different reactions.

Why? Simple: football. Crippling a powerful program that commands huge dollars and rabid loyalties was too much for its fans to bear. And let’s just say the Catholic Church doesn’t have quite the same effect on its faithful as the Nittany Lions do on theirs.

To be sure, there are differences between the two situations. While the Penn State scandal was unprecedented for a major college football program, the Catholic Church has been dealing with fallout from its scandals across the country for almost 20 years now, although this was the first time an official has been convicted of a crime for covering up child abuse.

But to push the comparison a step further, isn’t it true that Lynn’s counterparts at Penn State were President Graham Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley, Vice President Gary Schultz and Paterno himself? Curley and Schultz face criminal charges, and Spanier is under a grand jury investigation. If Paterno had not died in January, might not he be facing indictment as well?

And why wouldn’t he, if he committed the same crime as Lynn? On what basis would those applauding Lynn’s sentence defend Paterno? Just because he was an extraordinarily successful and beloved football coach?

We in Florida should not be too smug. Given the way football rivalries dominate the university life of this state, it is fatuous to suppose that what happened in Pennsylvania couldn’t happen here. If a similar scandal had happened at Florida State, it’s easy to imagine that officials might have deferred to Bobby Bowden’s judgment as Curley did to Paterno’s.

What does it say about our society that we declare hanging is too good for a priest who covered up abuse, but a college football program that does the same is allowed to continue to take the field? 

What it says is that our priorities – and our moral values – are very, very skewed.

Cary McMullen, the former religion writer for the Lakeland Ledger, is an editor who lives in Lakeland. He can be reached at [email protected]. 

© Florida Voices