As far as I can tell there is no difference between JoePa and JoePope. Both were kings of their worlds. Both turned a blind eye to sexual abuse of children to protect their records and their brand. As well as make a boatload of money.
Let's go through the timeline. According to CNN:
1977 - Jerry Sandusky founds the Second Mile, a charity to help troubled youth.
1998 - He is accused and admits to showering with a boy and says he sorry. The DA does not go forward with the charges and advises the Campus Police to drop the case.
Hmm, the police, the DA all investigate. Do we think JoePa (the king of Penn State) knew?
Maybe not.
1999 - Sandusky retires from Penn State football, but stays on as a "volunteer" and has full access to the campus and facilities.
A year later he retires from his job at one of the most successful college football programs in the country? Why would he do that? Is it really possible JoePa did know. Maybe.
2000 - A Janitor sees Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in the shower and reports it to his supervisor. Who does not report it to the police. And this point I'm guessing it has been reported to JoePa, just to protect his program and brand.
I think we are seeing a trend here. It looks pretty familiar to me.
2002 - McQueary sees the now famous shower rape scene and tells his father, who is not a police officer. Because if he were it would have made sense. They tell JoePa the next day. Second Mile is told.
And...nothing.
2004 - 2008 He abuses another boy while volunteering to help a wrestling coach. Wrestling. How convenient. He can quickly claim that his sexual contact is wrestling or horseplay.
And on. And on.
To digress for a moment, when Sandusky's narcissistic sociopathic side decided to phone in his interview with Bob Costas, he claimed it was horseplay.
"I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them, and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact," said Sandusky.
He went on to describe turning on all the showers and sliding across the floor as part of the horsing around. And that may be odd, but not sexual abuse of a child.
He is right. It is called grooming.
He is preparing the child for sexual contact by making it fun and safe to play around with a grown and naked man. 
It would probably happen a few times without any intimate contact at all. Then slide on the floor through my  legs. Accidentally touch. And you can imagine the rest.
And I hope you do. You need to think about how awful this is.
In 1970 a young Tom Teczar was in seminary studying to be a priest.  He was kicked out twice and  Bishop Flanagan from the Diocese of Worcester Massachusetts, wrote in response to an inquiry from Catholic University's dean, of Teczar's "predilection for intimate and rather exclusive companionship with young boys."
He noted that because in the mid-60's Teczar was fired from the Nazareth Home for Boys (a home for trouble youth - sound familiar?) for "inappropriately touching" a 10 year old boy.
So they ordain him and send him to Saint Mary's in Uxbridge Massachusetts where he has been known to have "allegedly" abused at least five boys. I was "allegedly" one.
Caught, is bounced around from parish to parish until in 1988 he was moved all the way to Fort Worth Texas. Where Bishop Delaney took him, even though he was well aware of Teczar's history.
Finally in 2002 he is arrested in Texas where he is now serving a 25 year sentence.
Can you imagine if someone had called the police in the mid-60's with that 10 year old boy?
Can you imagine if the DA had prosecuted Sandusky in 1998?
JoePa and JoePope couldn't.
But I wish they had.

I don't normally use this blog to promote any of my work. It is usually a place for me to poke the bag of Catholic with a stick. It is when I am irritated enough by the news of the day that I tend to sit down and write one of these. I haven't done that in awhile.
It's not that I haven't been irritated. I have. But I've been busy trying to promote my little short horror film called "Microcinema." But more on that later.
Today I want to talk about Sinead O'Connor. Apparently some people are upset that she tweeted "That there'd be a fucking bloodbath. Me meet the fucker off the plane myself" if Pope Benedict visited Ireland. In another tweet she talked about pulling the trigger.
And people are calling her crazy. Really? Have you looked at the Pope while he parades out another group of clergy sexual abuse survivors in Germany and apologizes. Just like he did in D.C. to people that I actually know.
He uses them as a PR tool, is humbled, promises change then leaves after the photo op to change nothing and continue to allow abuse through the old cover up game plan of move 'em and don't report. Which ultimately re-traumatizes the people he just humbly posed with.
How is that not infuriating? Last year I shot a short called "Putting on Its Shoes," which you can watch if you follow the link. It's free. It was shot in roughly the same place I shot "Microcinema." But more on that later. And it is .99 cents. The Best Horror for Under a Dollar.
Hey, an artist has to eat.
In "Putting on Its Shoes" I estimate that there are roughly 1,200,000 victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse worldwide. And I'm guessing these numbers are low. These numbers are staggering. The stuff that rises to the level of crimes against humanity.
The U.N. has sent in troops to countries for humanitarian purposes to stop such crimes. And the Holy Sea is a sovereign nation, so... Is Sinead that far off base? Not from where I'm sitting.
But I'm guessing the highly paid spokesperson for The Catholic League, Mr Bill Donohue will have a different take on Sinead.
Look at what he said about a recent Rolling Stone article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely about the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. 
"She treats the Rolling Stone readers to some of the most salacious renderings imaginable, drawing from the grand jury testimony of "Billy," a man who claims he was worked over by two priests and one lay teacher, beginning when he was 10."
The Irish Central then reports he smears "Billy" that would not dignify by quoting.
Why would a highly paid spokesperson for the Catholic Church say such a thing?
Because it is what Jesus would do.
Jesus Hitler, Adolf's older and meaner brother.
How does this stuff not drive people to the brink, like Sinead?
Which brings me to "Microcinema"
My horror short is about a highly educated, young man of means who passively watches snuff films. He even uses the phrase "passive observance" to describe his behavior. He decides to take it to the next level and produce his very own short.
When he finally decides to take action it isn't to stop it, but to participate. Because there is very little difference.
It reminds me of my favorite Walt Whitman poem "I Sit and Look Out" which ends with the lines:
All these-All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.
If you are not doing anything to stop it, you might as well be doing it. 
It is the same for everyone who remains a passive observer of this criminal behavior by men posing as conduits to God. Pass the basket please.
Good Lord! If the DA's and Federal Prosecutors won't get it done for me, like Sinead I'm shooting something to get justice.  I shoot a camera. My revenge is the horror short "Microcinema" 
Suffice it to say, the cinematic justice I served up seems to have struck a nerve with the reviewers as you can see below.
If horror is your thing, with metaphors that run way beyond the Catholic Church, drop the .99 cents for "Microcinema" already. Halloween is coming.


Reviews:


"I figured I was in for one of three things:  a really solid work, a bite size film that left me feeling nothing, or one of those that makes me want to substitute rat poison for the salt on my dinner table.  Those are the three categories all art falls into for me, always.  Yet, when it was all said and done, Shea's vignette carved a whole new icky slot out just for itself. 9 out of 10 Stars" - The Conduit Speaks
"Brilliant. 8.5 out of 10 Stars" - The Gruesome Hurtzogg Horror Movie Review Podcast.
"Skip Shea is an adept director with equal ability to write, his short film gets more across than most full length films. Microcinema is available here for a very worth it $0.99, (it's worth more, in my opinion). 4 out of 5 Stars" - The Bleeding Dead Film Reviews. 
"What I find particularly interesting about Microcinema is its plot and how it seems to blend together torture, voyeurism, and a lot of other really weird horrific topics like snuff films." - Horror Society 
"Microcinema Doesn't Disappoint" - Victor Infante, The Worcester Telergram & Gazette
"You will not be expecting to see the events that unfold in this shocking short film." - The Horror Spot
"The new indie horror romp Microcinema and it is a dozy." - Truly Disturbing Horror
Unicornsblud Horror Review Stamp of Majestic Approval.

It looks like the church has figured out the cause of the sexual abuse scandal. According to the 2 million dollar John Jay Report, the cause was the sexual and cultural revolution of the 60's and 70's. Apparently listening to songs like "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap makes priests lose impulse control and forces them to, well, force themselves on children.
According to the report - "The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in American society generally. This increase in abusive behavior is consistent with the rise in other types of ‘deviant’ behavior, such as drug use and crime, as well as changes in social behavior, such as an increase in premarital sexual behavior and divorce."
American society generally? Did the church export American society to Ireland and every other country where reports of the scandal have exploded?
That's right, they can't blame the 60's for the abuse in Ireland as reports say the epidemic of abuse there started in the 30's. John, Paul, George and Ringo weren't even born yet.
But did it really start in the 60's here? Well, not according to a blog I wrote in 2009. Hey, if Norman Mailer can quote himself why can't I? I know I've used that joke before, but I figured what the heck, I'm repeating myself anyway.
According to a New York Times article in 2009, "From the 1940’s through the 1960’s, bishops and superiors of religious orders sent their problem priests to Father Fitzgerald to be healed."  In 1947 Rev. Gerald M. C. Fitzgerald founded of the order, Servants of the Paraclete, a treatment center for priests, including pedophiles, in Jemez Springs, N.M.
According to the article he wrote in a letter in 1957, “We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the cura animarum,” meaning, the care of souls. 
He even went so far as to put a five thousand deposit on a Caribbean Island where he planned to build an isolated retreat to sequester priests who were sexual predators.
Fitzgerald finally met the Pope in 1963 to explain that there was an epidemic in the church. Which, as history has shown, only got worse.
All before a child of God was walking along the road, on the way to Woodstock.

After what appeared to be a relatively quiet spell, Catholic news has been like a blizzard. Fresh off the heels of the announcement of the beatification of John Paul II sparking requests for vials of his blood comes the discovery of a letter to the Irish Bishops during John Paul II's reign.
The 1997 letter is a response to a letter from the Irish Bishop's discussion of mandatory reporting of sexualabuse to civil authorities.

The letter, signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's envoy to Ireland, it instructs bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory "gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature"
The letter also says reporting such abuse would be embarrassing. I bet.
Yet the Vatican and groups like the Catholic League are saying this was merely a suggestion that they meticulously follow the Code of Cannon Law. This didn't mean they couldn't report the abuse. It just meant they shouldn't. Isn't that better?
Bill Donohue, spokesperson for the Catholic League, defended the letter by saying:

"Last month, several media outlets ran a story on how a rabbinical court in Brooklyn ordered its 10,000 members not to report crimes to the police. Not among those reporting on it was the New York Times...
So who wants mandatory reporting for everyone? The Catholic bishops want it—it's the liberal media and liberal activist groups who don't."
What? Maybe it is because I haven't had a cup of coffee yet but I have no idea what The New York Times has to do with the behavior of the Catholic Church.
As for the Jews, well the Catholic League also thinks they need to re-examine the role of Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust.  Right. I wonder if he was the one who suggested Sarah Palin use the term "Blood Libel." 
Did you know his salary is close to $400K?
So according to the well paid Mr. Donohue the Catholic Bishops want mandatory reporting. That's curious. 
Let's look at a letter written in 1984 by Silvio Angelo Pio Cardinal Oddi, who was from 1979 to 1986 Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy - that is, the Curia, which is, together with the Pope, the governing body of the Catholic Church.  The Pope still being near saint John Paul II.
The letter addressed to Bishop Moreno of Tuscon says there isn't "any need for engaging in the so called "due process" procedures," and "The files of a Bishop concerning his priests are altogether private; their forced acquisition by civil authority would be an intolerable attack upon the free exercise of religion in the United States."
I've got to hand it to Donohue, he may be right. The Bishops may want mandatory reporting. It is the vatican who doesn't. Along with the New York Times.
But what about the Cardinals?
Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian released on his Web page the names of 117 priests, deacons and lay members that he claims abused 750 children over half a century. He released the names in order to prompt the Boston Archdiocese to release the names for sake of public safety.  Of the 117 names, 19 were new. Never before reported.
Of the 19 new names 12 are now deceased. Spokesperson Kelly Lynch for the Boston Archdiocese said  “Since all of the new names are deceased men, clearly no child was put at risk because these names were not in the public domain.” 
And? 
On December 21st Pope Benedict said in reference to the abuse scandal, "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred." 
Okay, instead of asking yourselves why not ask me? I would suggest releasing all of the names, including the ones who are deceased so a person who may have been abused by that dead priest may start to get the help they need to cope with the abuse and try to lead a normal life. 
Or are you afraid they might just lawyer up to help repair the injustice and handing over files is just too intolerable?
Full disclosure can repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. So would a Congressional Hearing into what appears to be an organized cover up. Or a federal prosecutor with some balls.