Richard Sipe - ex-priest who worked hard to expose sex abuse in the Catholic Church. This LA Times piece tells some of his story.
". . . Sipe was ordained in 1959 and soon became aware of priests who had relationships with adults and children. Later, he worked at a Baltimore psychiatric institute where abusive priests were sent for treatment and evaluation, and he began documenting their stories. With the help of his future wife, a psychiatrist at the institute, he published a 1990 book called, “A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy.”
Sipe, an expert witness in hundreds of clergy abuse cases, argued that celibacy and abuse were connected. We’re sexual creatures, he said, so celibacy is an unnatural expectation, and sex and sexual abuse are rampant among priests.
Those who abuse minors, he explained, have a convenient racket going. Peers may keep quiet because they’re predators too, and even if the abuse is reported to superiors, they’ve got reasons to maintain the code of silence. Maybe they don’t want to damage the image of the church. Or maybe they have their own sins to hide.
So pedophiles remain in ministry, or they’re shuffled to another parish, or to Mexico. Often, there’s no attempt to explain what’s happening to parishioners, to call the police or to do the most basic, caring, human thing — to offer an apology, comfort and support to victims. . .
Hugh Thompson - Stopped My Lai massacre before it got worse.
" . . . Who were the people lying in the roads and in the ditch, wounded and killed?[Thanks Dennis for this one.]
"They were not combatants. They were old women, old men, children, kids, babies."
Then Thompson and his crew chief, Glenn Andreotta, and his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, "saw some civilians hiding in a bunker, cowering, looking out the door. Saw some advancing Americans coming that way. I just figured it was time to do something, to not let these people get killed. Landed the aircraft in between the Americans and the Vietnamese, told my crew chief and gunner to cover me, got out of the aircraft, went over to the American side."
What happened next was one of the most remarkable events of the entire war, and perhaps unique: Thompson told the American troops that, if they opened fire on the Vietnamese civilians in the bunker, he and his crew would open fire on them. . . ."
I follow an established wisdom that our personal lives and choices matter. But our review shouldn't stop with these people’s necessary actions. Maybe these same men (here) went on to striking a child in anger, to betraying a vital secret, perhaps cheating on a partner? Who knows? Do they remain heroes if they later sexually-harassed a young woman?
ReplyDeleteWhat instrumentally makes a good story or a good life is found in choices taken. Heroism certainly is about triumph over one’s personal risk in taking right action: it’s a rare good; an almost unnatural consideration of another’s life over self. In short, we think we know what makes a hero. It might not be found in fighting one’s terminal cancer but maybe in donating one’s kidney to a stranger.
Through all this, we know we’re not angels; we are human stuff, some times good but tracking bad as well. Each of us - deep within us - know our mix of tempers, not those who write our stories. It would be good to gather this conversation in open fora, but that’s another project for another day.
I usually try to qualify things, but in this case, I didn't think about checking out the rest of these men's lives. But at least I didn't call them heroes - I said this is what heroes do. Though I was thinking about the hero treatment that McCain is getting. He had lots of flaws, but my sense is that deep down his intentions were good and often he was able to step up and do 'the right thing.' And yes, I've been thinking about how, right now, one or two stupid sexual advances , can erase everything else a person has done. There's certainly a big distance between what caused Al Franken to resign from the Senate and what some Cardinals and some sports officials did, or didn't do. But I also think of how victims lives were also ruined, if not forever, often for a long time. Life isn't fair. But sometimes it works. I guess the idea of heaven and hell is to give hope to good but downtrodden folks that they will eventually get rewarded and the evil ones will be punished.
ReplyDeleteYes, there's lots to consider.