And Now the Boy Scouts?

When you ask, you do not receive, 

because you ask with wrong motives,

that you may spend it on your own lusts.

James 4:3

When I was a senior in high school, I attended a church-supported school.  Toward the end of the school year, it was discovered that the religion teacher (a man in his fifties) was having an affair with one of the girls in my class.  The circumstances were immediately hushed up.  The teacher had already accepted an offer to teach at a denominational college for the next school year, so they kicked the girl out of school just before graduation and completely covered up the religion teacher's part in the scandal.  They let him transfer to the college in another state without saying a word to that institution, and he promptly had another affair with a freshman girl the next year.  The college stripped him of his job and his credentials. 

Several years ago, when the Catholic Church's image exploded in the endless accusations of moral corruption among the priesthood, with stories of abuse against young men becoming an endless litany, we expected the church "officials" to clean up their act.  A lot of the cleanup, unfortunately, was sweeping the dirt under the rug.  Many priests were simply moved to a different parish, where the inevitable happened again.

Recently we experienced the meltdown of Penn State University and its officials - both administrative and sports - who turned a blind eye to an eyewitness report of an associate molesting a young boy in the locker room showers.  Eventually the filth and horror of that saga brought down the University president, the legendary head football coach, and several other administrators.

And now we have the Boy Scouts.  The details of approximately 12,000 cases from across the nation were released Thursday by order of an Oregon court as part of a landmark 2010 case against the Boy Scouts.  The material reveals from one time to the next, in one state or another, Scout leaders quietly shielding adult male volunteers from prosecution.  Almost fifty years ago, seven boys wrote letters in graphic detail regarding abuse at the hands of their Boy Scout leader in vehicles and on camping trips.  In 1964, the organization kicked out the offending adult (21-years-old at the time), but there is no record that he was ever reported to authorities.  In the 1980's, the Scouts reinstated this man, and he immediately molested another child.  Files show that when the Scouts are the first to be notified of abuse, they often choose to let the accused volunteer quietly leave rather than reporting the abuse to the authorities.

What is it within our current society that refuses to "do the right thing" when confronted with sexual abuse of children/youth by adults until they are forced to do so by undeniable evidence?  What keeps those in authority from revealing the truth in these circumstances?  Money?  Influence? Reputation?  Pride?  Fear?  Shame?

Every organization or charity that deals with youth must have policies in place to deal truthfully with any kind of abuse - physical, sexual, emotional or verbal.  Those who are voted into leadership must be men or women who hold the truth above the excuses of those who just want the situation to go away.  Those who perpetrate such crimes against children must be held accountable for their actions - no if's, no and's, no but's.