But first I think it’s important to give some context. What needs to be saved about the American culture in the first place? The family.

A nation is only as strong as its foundation, and for a society, its foundation is the family: Children, mothers and fathers. But in America, all three are threatened as never before.

Children

• We kill 1.6 million children a year by abortion.
• A child sex abuse scandal continues to spread across our public schools and other institutions while the media and courts refuse to give sustained attention to it anywhere except in the comparatively small abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
• About 9 out of every 10 children 8-16 years old have viewed pornography online.
• In our hookup culture nearly 1 in 3 teens is having intercourse, mostly with people they don’t consider their boyfriend or girlfriend.

Women

• Women are routinely treated as objects of pleasure in our advertisements and entertainments  — Beyonce at halftime at the Super Bowl, for example.
• Pornography is by far the biggest money-maker in the entertainment industry; polls say 2 out of every 3 young men you meet spend hours each week looking at it. This dramatically affects the way they treat women. Pornography is our culture’s most common expression of the female.
• According to the U.S. Justice Department 1 in 3 adult women in America has been the victim of rape or physical assault at some point in her adulthood.

Men

• Fathers abandoning their families is a national epidemic — their failure to help is the leading cause of poverty in women, and contributes to a whole host of problems, as James Dobson and Kurt Bruner point out in Fatherless.
• Men’s entertainment — from rap to metal to video games – is filled with crassness, violence and misogyny. Whether it’s hip hop culture or Oscar comedy, objectifying and demeaning women is mainstream
• Videogames have become the national pastime, for men especially. About 3 out of 4 gamers is 18 or older, spending an average 18 hours a week playing video games. Whether you think this makes men “shiftless, boring wimps” or contributes to violence, or not, it at least makes virtual violence  the centerpiece of our culture’s self-expression of masculinity.

So, with a tidal wave of anti-family sentiment that powerful, what could possible reverse the course? Only a sea change.

I argue over at the National Catholic Register (“The March for Life Lesson We Can’t Afford to Ignore”) that the significant victories we are experiencing in the right to life are capable of bringing about just such a sea change.

1. Embracing the right to life will mean stopping the slaughter of infants.
2. Embracing the right to life will pull the rug out from under the sexual revolution which has done so much damage to women.
3. Embracing the right to life will mean forcing men to take responsibility for their actions once again.

Now, I know there are very good arguments for why my position may be wishful thinking, and expecting too much. They just may be right. A culture like ours, in which the basic fundamentals of family life have been so systematically destroyed, may be unfixable.

In that case, the consequences will be severe. God won’t punish us in some mystical way. He won’t have to. He will punish us the way he punishes gardeners who don’t water their gardens.

• Our population will not replace itself, making our crushing debt crisis an imminent threat instead of a future worry.
• People who live sexualized childhoods will suffer in their self-esteem and their ability to form mature attachments, and their sexual maturity, worsening the cycle in the next generation.
• A nation of broken families will suffer economically, and a culture inordinately devoted to entertainment instead of self-mastery and value-production won’t snap out of that quickly.

That’s “the hard way” out of our mess: To be brought inch by inch to our low point until we look around, startled that we have gone from the world’s only superpower that unfortunately scored poorly on math tests to a has-been nation that aborted its future but was too busy on our smart phones to notice that it was gone.

But we might not need to learn this one the hard way.

I remember saying at a party once, “I don’t get why people don’t wake up to reality and reject this stuff!”

To which a woman responded incredulously, “Tom, you and nearly every person in this room has done just that.”

Indeed we have. And as we saw at the last March for Life, our numbers are growing every year.

I believe that if we focus on the right to life — if we focus on the “killing babies” plank of this twisted anti-family agenda — we can win this. Evil’s greatest victory in our time is that parents are willing to kill their kids. But the greatest threat to evil in our time is that of course they won’t keep doing that.

If we redouble the efforts we have made to compassionately and fearlessly defend life and help mothers, we absolutely can win this.

Remember when sports pundits called the Penn State football program squeaky clean? The famous Paterno creed, “winning with honor” served as the high standard for collegiate football.

Then, the Sandusky scandal erupted. The proud and pristine tradition of PSU is now forever tarnished by its child predator, Jerry Sandusky.

Where and when will the next Jerry Sandusky emerge? Sadly, Sandusky is not an outlier, unique to Penn State. Although he was a prominent defensive coordinator who served under the nation’s most revered college coach, his criminal behavior mimics the classic pedophile profile. Jerry Sandusky, stripped of his title, is your garden variety child perp.

While the country was focused on Penn State, a number of colleges were dealing with their own child sex scandals. The stories are numbingly similar; knowledge of predatory behavior and delays in reporting child predators to law enforcement. It is time for universities to start paying attention or face the loss of reputation and endowment in the process. Here is a troubling lineup:

University of Michigan
The Board of Regents recently ordered an external investigation of the six-month reporting delay of child pornography discovered on an employee’s thumb drive. The employee, Stephen Jenson, was a University of Michigan Hospital pediatric resident. At least eight university employees, including a university lawyer, knew of the child pornography allegedly on Jenson’s computer in May 2011, but did not notify the police. The matter was reopened in November and finally reported to university police after doctors at the University of Michigan hospital read about the Sandusky scandal. Jenson is now charged in a federal criminal complaint with receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography. The U.S. Department of Education is also investigating the University of Michigan for the delay in reporting the crime. Sound familiar?

Citadel University
Recently, officials at The Citadel admitted they did not do enough after learning that an employee who has been accused of sexually abusing at least five boys in recent years, was brought to the school’s attention back in 2007. An internal university investigation was conducted, but police were never informed. Louis ReVille, a 2002 graduate of The Citadel, was hired by the college as a camp counselor for three summers, from 2001 to 2003. According to Citadel documents, he lured boys to his room with pizza and Chinese food to view pornography and performed sex acts. The former coach who once worked as a summer camp counselor at The Citadel military college was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual abuse crimes involving 23 young male victims. In November of 2011, the school said it had investigated accusations against ReVille in 2007 but took no action.

Sound familiar?

Where children play, predators lurk. Jerry Sandusky’s playground was Second Mile Charity and Penn State. Thousands of disadvantaged and neglected children belonged to the Second Mile Foundation. Jerry had free rein with young boys on the campus and Penn State served as the playground for a dangerous mix of vulnerable children and a powerful predator.

The massive influx of children on college campuses
The size and scope of the population of children on universities is staggering, as Penn State proudly advertises on its athletic department website:

“Parents, are you looking for a way your children can build self-confidence, learn about and develop skills in activities they enjoy, and make new friends in a fun environment. Every year more than 220, 000 youth have memorable Penn State experiences with Penn State faculty, staff, and graduate students who care about helping youth excel. School age youth can choose from more than 95 sports camps and dozens of hands-on programs in arts, theatre, science and engineering.”

Chilling, isn’t it?

Last summer 220,000 children participated in activities when child molester, Jerry Sandusky roamed and showered on campus. Sandusky’s many boy victims certainly never developed more “self confidence” or considered PSU a “fun environment.”

Nearly every university in the United States runs summer youth programs, everything from football to marching band camps. Every summer, millions of children participate in activities and live on college campuses. The recruitment of underage children to participate in and live on college campuses is big business for universities. These children’s camps generate huge revenue and provide a valuable recruitment tool for college teams.

Until Sandusky, the public didn’t realize that universities were rife with children. What are children doing on college campuses anyway?

The mission of universities is to educate young adults, by imparting knowledge and skills in a rigorous classroom setting and to prepare adult students for the world of work. Colleges are not qualified to operate and house summer sports camps for 8 year olds. Yet, colleges opened their doors to children without the training and knowledge to serve and protect young children. These college summer camps are glorified employment agencies for grad students, coaches and professors.

Every university board of trustees and administration should be both vigilant and terrified that one of its employees might be a Jerry Sandusky. Where is the next Jerry Sandusky… Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Pac12? Although you shouldn’t bet on college sports, the odds are great that many schools have a Coach Jerry.

For decades, Joe Paterno was Penn State football. He was the face of the football program. That football icon ended last year and now, Jerry Sandusky is the lasting image in State College, PA.

Legends die and legacies linger much longer.

© Elizabeth Yore-2012 All Rights Reserved. Elizabeth Yore is the former Special Counsel at Harpo, Inc., where she served as Oprah Winfrey’s Child Advocate. She was also the former General Counsel at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Republicans take over Virginia Senate, pending a recount. Bryce Reeves (right) has an 86 vote lead. If that holds, the GOP will control both house of the Legislature and the Governor’s office. http://cvote.to/7w

Ohio voters rejected GOP’s public union reform plan but also rejected President Obama’s health care mandate. http://cvote.to/80

John McCormick in the Weekly Standard: “Why Did Anti-Abortion Mississippi vote down the Personhood Amendment”? http://cvote.to/7x

Penn State head coach Joe Paterno will resign at the end of the season. Paterno is under criticism for not doing enough to report sex abuse charges against a former assistant coach. http://cvote.to/7s

The Obama administration has announced a 15-cent Christmas tree tax. http://cvote.to/7t

Dorothy Rabinowitz: “Why Gingrich Could Win.” http://cvote.to/7u

Atheocracy.  A new word, and a real threat.  Denver’s Bishop James Conley explains. http://cvote.to/7v

Siena College, which is Catholic, invites a speaker to campus who says the Catholic Church has “blood on their hands.” http://cvote.to/7y

22 years ago today, the Berlin Wall was finally opened and the people of East Germany were no longer imprisoned. Why we must always remember. http://cvote.to/7r

The cause of our joy. And the sure sign that evil cannot prevail.

“Will the Church survive this? Yes. How? The Holy Spirit. I wouldn’t give you five bucks for the whole operation if it weren’t for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can’t keep this up on our own.”

I paraphrase from memory, but so said Father Benedict Groeschel in a conference I heard years back shortly after the sex abuse scandal began to break.

Episodes like what has gone down of late in Kansas City-St. Joseph make you wonder how God will bring good out of this evil, but there is nothing for us to do but to trust that He will, and will provide for the victims.

Another conference I heard, this by Archabbot Lambert Reilly of St. Meinrad’s in Indiana, included a story he told about a previous conference he gave. Again, I’ll paraphrase, but he said he was giving a retreat to a group of bishops and after the first couple of days of impressing each other—because that’s what people do when they first come together—they had more or less gelled. And at the start of a particular conference he said, “Before I begin my remarks I have two comments. One has to do with me and the other has to do with you. The one that has to do with me is, ‘God can work through any jackass he chooses.’ And the one that has to do with you is, ‘He only has jackasses to choose from.’ And so then I gave my remarks and after that conference one of the cardinals on retreat came up to me and said, ‘Father archabbot, I think that’s the first time I’ve been called a jackass publicly.’ And I said to the cardinal, ‘I think what you mean is “outloud.”‘”

At the conclusion of that story and the ensuing laughter Archabbot Lambert went on to thunder, “THE CHURCH DOESN’T GO ON BECAUSE YOU’RE GOOD, OR I’M GOOD.”

The Church goes on because Christ said it would go on until the end of time.

End of story.

Awful things like this indictment are most definitely not the end of the story. Nor, unfortunately, are they the end of men and women who represent and lead the Church in various capacities doing very bad things.

God help us if we do not do everything we can to prevent such evil and eradicate it if we come to know about it.

It's a target. The Roman collar proclaims to the world, "JESUS IS LORD. And I will live and die by that credo."

So the Irish prime minister, and now some Australian legislator, is working on a bill that, if passed into law, would ostensibly compel, under penalty of jail time, priests to break the seal of confession and tell the civil authorities if child abuse is confessed.

Let’s look at some of the problems with this proposal.

1) If the penitent stays “behind the screen,” the priest cannot possibly credibly identify the person. Face-to-face confession is great in its place, but it is not required. If the priest does break the seal of confession, all he can say is, “someone confessed pedophilia today, but I have no way of knowing whom.” Sure, in some places a priest will know many people by their voice and vocal ticks and speech patterns and vocabulary, etc., but then the penitent who wants to confess pedophilia will simply travel to a parish where the priest cannot possibly know him by voice. And then he can disguise his voice. Law thwarted.

2) How many hardened pedophiles actually go to confession? I’d wager not many. And the priest pedophiles, if they are the sort to still feel the need to confess their pedophilia, are smart enough to get around this law by doing what I mention above: go behind the screen, in a place where they will not be recognized by voice. So whom is the law targeting: the pedophiles? Or the non-pedophile priests?

3) If the penitent has a reasonable assumption that the priest will divulge his pedophilia, he is far less likely to actually confess his pedophilia, even if his conscience tells him it was a sin and he ought to confess it. He may simply not go to confession at all, or leave that item out of his list—neither option is at all good. In this case the law has managed to keep the penitent from getting any good counsel at all (let alone the assistance of the grace of the sacrament). Further, considering that the vaaaast majority of priests are neither pedophiles themselves nor involved in the cover-ups that enabled so many of the pedophile priests, they would undoubtedly steer the pedophile in the right direction and possibly encourage the pedophile to confess his crime to the civil authorities. So then the law was counter-productive.

4) It would put the priest in the position of having to choose between a civil penalty or an excommunication(a priest incurs automatic excommunication upon himself if he breaks the seal of confession). Simple choice, really: five years in prison is a small price to pay for refusal to separate oneself from God’s Church. Priests have died rather than break the seal of confession through the years. Either way the priest is in a tough position, but the cost incurred as per the previous points in dissuading most pedophiles from seeking any help at all would be awful. Plus, since the vaaaaast majority of priests have no been guilty of any of the crimes, the priests who would be most consistently put in this tough position would be those who have been unfairly tarnished by the despicable actions of a few.

5) What if a person who was not guilty of pedophilia confesses pedophilia to the priest in a mock confession, knowing that they could not be convicted of the crime since they had not committed it, and guessing that the priest would not report it, just to get the priest in trouble for not reporting what he had every reason to believe was a true confession of pedophilia. Think that’s crazy? There are people who hate the Catholic Church enough to try it. Would the law specifically protect priests from such a ruse? I would hope so, but doubt.

6) And perhaps most tellingly, why only pedophilia? What if murder is confessed? Rape? Theft? Arson? Why target confessions of pedophilia? Why not force priests to divulge all crimes that are confessed, even up to running a stop sign? Of course, the answer can be speculated, from motives of virulent anti-Catholicism to simple stupidity. But no matter how you slice it, it is a terribly misguided approach to undoing the harm of the sex scandals and preventing future such cases.

Yes, unimaginable damage was done to many people by the unconscionable actions of a few powerful people, resulting in a whole lot of evil and awfulness, but such laws would compound the problem without solving anything.

Bottom line remains, at least here in the States: since the Church began in earnest her response to the scandal, no institution is more safe for youth than the Catholic Church.

My final semester in seminary began with a 5-day silent retreat with Archbishop Dolan, then of Milwaukee, as retreat-master. I had the privilege of a few 15- minute one-on-one sessions with him. I’ve met few people as genuine and magnetic.

The main thrust of the interview was Dolan’s gift of the gab, his magnetic personality, openness, and, of course, his unwavering “conservatism.” The topics were typical: sex abuse scandal, women’s ordination, abortion and contraception, priestly celibacy, and how the Church in America reverses the trend of Catholics no longer simply calling themselves “bad Catholics,” but actually declaring that they are no longer part of the Church.

All in all a great piece but it had some real head-shaker moments. I love lines like this one from old-guard liberal Morley Safer:

But if you think that Dolan is going to push for changes in those doctrines and beliefs, think again: despite the jolly, open demeanor, he’s about as conservative as they come.

(That’s supposed to be a drawback to liking him.)

Safer pressed on, as though the “liberal” positions were obviously the right ones, and the only ones someone with Dolan’s charisma ought to tend toward.

No question that you’re conciliatory, that you like to dialogue, but underneath that you’re an old-fashioned conservative; I mean, in the sense of a right-wing conservative.

Dolan hits this one out of the park.

I would bristle at being termed “right-wing,” but if somebody means enthusiastically committed and grateful for the timeless heritage of the Church, and feeling that my best service is when I try to preserve that and pass that on in its fullness and beauty and radiance, I’m a conservative, no doubt.

The exchange shows that folks like Morley Safer and the liberals who still largely run most of the major media outlets still don’t understand the liberating power of truth, humility, and especially the comfort in knowing the timelessness of Catholic truth.

Beyond that, however, is the assumption that in the Church, there is a “right-wing” position, which presently holds sway, and a “left-wing” position that is equally valid and may eventually win out. As though eventually in conclave or synod or council, the bishops will vote to allow women’s ordination, gay marriage, or any other liberal cause celebre. Dissenters on core doctrinal matters will always be dissenters.

This next video is from the “60 Minutes Overtime” Website, so while it has some great tidbits from the interview, it’s more of a story about the story, with another reporter reporting on Morley’s report and interviewing him about his interview with Dolan.

(Click “Continue Reading” not “Read Entire Post”)

More in-depth, and very accessible, answers to doctrinal questions come through on this one, but the “meta-discussion,” in which another reporter interviews Safer is also interesting.

Says Safer about Dolan: “He is a genuinely jovial, life-embracing, people loving man. There’s no question of that.”

The reporter does pointedly refer to the “right to gay marriage.” Interesting Orwellian re-cast of the language there, no?

But Dolan’s defense of the definition of marriage and the danger of tampering with the definition is instructive. Safer offered that allowing gay marriage wouldn’t attack heterosexual marriage, and wouldn’t alter the definition that much. Dolan came back with, “Where would, then, the tampering stop? I love my mom. But I don’t have the right to to marry her. Okay? So there are certain rights and attractions in life that are very beautiful, and very noble, but don’t entitle you to marriage.”

The rest went to women’s ordination, priestly celibacy, the Church being ever young while operating in every age.

The end was about his “salesmanship.” I appreciate what they mean by “salesmanship,” but it seems like such a tawdry term to use for evangelization.

The interview was what I expected from Dolan, and from Safer. Old-guard liberals expect those who adhere to Church teachings to be aloof, temperamental, irritated, and unapproachable, annoyed that someone would challenge their authority.

Dolan is just about the opposite of those things. Dolan, and a number of the other new-guard American bishops, are accessible, articulate, eager teachers, who recognize the great liberty that comes with preaching Christ, and him crucified, in and through the teachings of the Church, with a smile. They recognize that Christ is the worker of the work, they are the vessel. They recognize that the message is all important, not their personal advancement. They recognize that if they do their level best to cling to Christ, He will accomplish great things through them. And these realizations bring great liberty and joy.

In spite of his central role in setting right what has been damaged by the sex abuse crisis, and in spite of having the responsibility of the Archdiocese of New York and the presidency of the USCCB, he remains one of the most light-spirited, gregarious, accessible, inspiring people you will ever meet.

Chesterton said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” Dolan has been described as “cherubic,” which referred more to his build and red cheeks, but…

Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church

David Pierre, the author, runs TheMediaReport.com and blogs for Newsbusters.org (a resource I often use when critiquing media bias). His reporting has been cited by the Drudge Report and Fox News.

In 18 succinct chapters, he argues that the media’s reporting of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal was extraordinarily biased, that the Church has become an exemplary institution when it comes to protecting the innocence of children, that attorneys unscrupulously capitalized on the media frenzy for financial gain, and that the continued myth that the Catholic Church in the U.S. harbors and abets child abusers not only is an unfair slander to good priests and the pope (and by extension, a slander to all Catholics), but the belief that only priests abuse continues to paper-over the widespread and ongoing national exploitation of children.

All of that may be a lot to take in, and luckily Pierre has peppered his chapters with footnotes and citations of his claims. Even for someone who has read about this subject for years, it was eye-opening to me.

In all fairness, at times I think Pierre is a bit over-zealous in his defense of the Church, and at times transitions from impartial reporter to advocate for the Church, but one can hardly blame him considering the enormous amount of evidence on his side compared with the unfair allegations which continue to be made about the Church (and, as recently as earlier this year, the pope).

Yes, abuse happened, yes more could and should have been done to address these abuses, yes the Church must continue to make amends, but as things stand now, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is simply one of the safest places for children anywhere, and those that continue to attack innocent priests, the pope, and all Catholics for the failings of the past have a separate agenda in mind than the protection of children.

Double Standard has a final use. If someone attacks you or slanders the Church over the sexual abuse scandal, challenge them to read this book and continue saying such things. Most generalities that people utter about the abuse scandal have little to no basis in reality, and if people cannot prove the outrageous claims they make about the Church, and if they are honest people, they will cease repeating them. It is up to faithful Catholics who love the Church and do not wish to see her witness dimmed by falsehood to call her attackers out.

Fushek, best known for founding the Life Teen Ministry, was laicized after a Vatican investigation into charges of the sexual abuse of minors. Fushek actually left the Church in 2007 and was formally excommunicated by Phoenix bishop, Thomas Olmsted’s in December 2008.

The Diocese of Phoenix has a great Q&A resource on laicization.

While Life Teen has yet to comment on the laicization, you can probably gage their response to it by reading their statement on Fushek’s excommunication.

While I have plenty of problems with Life Teen’s methodology, it is pretty clear that Fushek’s dismissal does not reflect on  Life Teen at this point. However, it does raise other questions about the leadership of Catholic organizations and initiatives. When you take Fushek and Fr. Maciel together, you have a sense of what can happen when founding something goes to your head.  Lets be sure to pray for the renewal of humble and obedient leadership in the Church. Of course, let us not forget to pray for Mr. Fushek and his victims as well.