Media attacks on the Catholic Church seem endless. This goes on despite vast improvements in policies to ensure safety of children in the Church & its institutions & tighter screening of those entering seminary. Furthermore, the media seems to ignore the recent admission & apology by Pope Benedict XVI. That’s too bad, because there is plenty of juicy scandal brewing in the public schools. Yet the motto of the NY Times, “All the news that is fit to print” only applies to the Catholic Church, not the public schools.
Take the New York City School System. In 2001 one of its teachers was caught in acts of voyeurism of girls as young as 13. He’s been in the “rubber room” since that time & thanks to union rules, continued to receive $700,000 in salary. Another teacher allegedly impregnated a 16-year-old when he began teaching 32 years ago. He too is in the “rubber room,” still being bankrolled by the taxpayers to the tune of $94,000 a year. Yet despite the magnitude of the offenses & the cost to the taxpayers, nothing has been said about it, until recently, when the “rubber room” story broke! Not long ago, a teacher was dismissed from the Wayne School System & lost his teacher’s license for molesting a 16-year-old student. It received little coverage outside Wayne itself.
Recently an attempt was made to ram through a bill in the NY City Council, specifically calling for close, stringent oversight of the Catholic Church, its religious ed programs & schools, including the turnover of financial records, & even the requirement that priests reveal what transpires in Confession. Again, this bill applied only to the Catholic Church, not to public schools! It is my guess that when wiser heads looked at the First & Fourteenth Amendment, the bill died!
While safety of children has vastly improved in the Catholic Church, the Bill Mahers of this world “zip up the lip” when it comes to the growing sexual scandal in public schools! Obviously they don’t want to offend the teachers & their all-powerful unions! But the scandal in public schools has gone nationwide & is an ever growing problem. Cover up by the media will only make it worse!
