Now I'm not much of a sports fan, nor a follower of the Penn
State football team, but the Sandusky case and its aftermath has me
thinking.
But first, this N.C.A.A. ruling:
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Monday, July 23,
2012 -- 9:32 AM EDT
N.C.A.A. Fines Penn
State $60 Million for Sandusky Case
The N.C.A.A.
announced significant penalties against Penn State and its football program
Monday, including a $60 million fine and a four-year postseason ban, in the
wake of the child sexual abuse scandal involving the former assistant coach
Jerry Sandusky.
The punishment also
included the loss of some scholarships and the vacating of all of the team’s
victories from 1998 to 2011, but stopped short of forcing the university to
shut down the football team for a season or more, the so-called death penalty.
Still, the penalties are serious enough that it is expected to take Penn
State’s football program, one of the most successful in the country, years
before it will be able to return to the sport’s top echelon.
Read More:
Now the commentary:
Would that there were some NCAA-type oversight
organization watching the Vatican and the world-wide Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Imagine a third-party Über-regulator closely watching the goings-on of Church
leaders! The world-wide cases of sexual abuse would have generated fines of
billions of dollars in addition to the settlement dollars that have so far run
two dioceses into bankruptcy.
And the proceeds? Dream with me here . . .
TRILLIONS FOR A THREE-FOLD FOUNDATION
Our Über-regulator--administered
by a representatives of the alphabet soup of Catholic progressive organizations
like SNAP, VOTF, NWM, CTA, WOC, RCWP, CORPUS, FCM, CITI, ACC, CACG, LCWR, [to
identify them, just use your browser; Dignity-USA has a listing of many other U.S.
groups http://www.dignityusa.org/links] and all the other many international progressive
groups—would see that a foundation be established to create a kind of justice
fund for,first, ongoing care of those who have suffered at the hands of
pedophile clergy. And shouldn’t the Über-regulator be made up af a goodly
representation of women, who as life-bearers are better equipped than celibate
men to understand life issues.
The second service the foundation would provide is a fund to counterbalance the abundance of funding provided by numerous groups to further the anti-Vatican II "Restoration." This would create a counter-Restoration fund bigger than that provided by the likes of Opus Dei, K of C, Domino Pizza's Tom Monaghan, the Legionaries of Christ, Communion and Liberation.
Thirdly, the fine-funded
proceeds—to which these "status quo" and "Vatican
II-revisionist" could contribute if they wished—would be used to create a
forum for dialogue on life [a reason for, perhaps, a majority of women on the
administering group] and sexual ethics in the spirit of Cardinal Bernardin's
"Seamless Garment" and format. http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bernardinwade.html And
since with all of what-will-be trillions of dollars generated by the fines
resulting from all the on-going claims against the Church, a third portion of
funding would be allotted to furthering practical advocacy for real justice for
the most at-risk in our world.
Or perhaps you, fine reader,
have suggestions for other uses to which the money from the dreamed-of fines
could be applied by our imaginary Church Über-regulator. And don’t rule out
added penalties for Vatican/hierarchy violating Catholic Social Teaching using as
a standard by which to judge violations the Compendium of the Social Teaching
of the Church: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
BTW, there's an interesting
commentary on Catholic Social Teaching and the present political landscape by
E.J. Dionne and a panel on NOW with Alex Wagner on MSNBC aired on April 24,
2012 http://video.msnbc.msn.com/now-with-alex-wagner/47160528#47160528
