Different church, same scandal

The Sydney Morning Herald ran this story this morning.

Abuse of children has been wide spread in many religious (and other) institutions.  I say has been, because I am hopeful that it will become less common, that there will be more accountability, that the monsters who prey on little children will be caught and punished rather than shielded from consequences as they have been.  I have to be hopeful, because accepting that it is inevitable and unavoidable it not something I can comfortably contemplate and keep living in this world.

This mornings report was not about the Catholic church which has taken a beating (deserved) in the media, but focuses on a Sydney Jewish school.  The rabbi quoted, apparently said that the child in question had given consent.  The child in question was 11 years old.  I have an 11 year old myself, and if some adult man ever took advantage of her in such a despicable fashion, and then subsequently described her as a "consenting partner," I would rip that persons head from their body.  What an utterly disgusting thing to imply.  What a repellant man the Rabbi Lesche is, that he would dare to suggest that the child, child! was in any way to blame.

Rabbi Lesche does not confine his loathsome commentary to the 11 year old in question.  He would have us believe "teenagers from poor backgrounds had ''nothing else to do in life, only thinking 24 hours about sex with each other, members of their own families and even dogs."  He continues in this hateful fashion by saying that that "some non-Jewish boys, who he termed ''goyims'', began acting or thinking sexually from the age of five."  There are so many offensive things in these sentences that I am having trouble separating them.  Apparently "the poor" are more sexually deviant than the rich, as are non Jews in comparison to Jews. 

How sickening that someone who is apparently part of an educational institution is far more interested in protecting dirty old men who molest those in their charge, than in protecting the innocent.  And worse, maligns the victims, demanding that they share some of the blame.  He asks that the offenders not be reported as it will destroy them.  Says that it was all so long ago, that nothing can be achieved by pursuing them.  Only justice, only righting a wrong, only closure for the victims of crimes so heinous that reasonable people are sickened by them. This man is a disgrace to education, to religion, to decent society. 

Sometimes I just can't see the point in human beings.