FRIDAY NIGHT WITHOUT THE LIGHTS

Just think: Sayreville, NJ is a borough that dates back to the beginnings of this country, but until last week you may never have heard of it. Even though it was home to luminaries like rocker Jon Bon Jovi and actors Dule Hill (The West Wing) and Greg Evigan (My Two Dads), nothing exceptional calls attention to this town of under 50,000 residents. We know it is a majority Democratic town that strongly supported Barack Obama, but voted mostly for Chris Christie for Governor.  We now know that football is something of an obsession in Sayreville, even though the Friday night lights are now dimmed indefinitely.

That’s because we also now know that several high school football players allegedly sexually assaulted other students on school property.  How to put this delicately: Let’s just say the alleged perpetrators digitally penetrated the alleged victims. High school students. In the locker room.

Seven of the accused have now been charged in the attacks.  Three of them face aggravated sexual assault, criminal restraint and hazing charges. The other four are charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact. All have been suspended from school, and the Sayreville Superintendent, Richard Labbe, has publicly stated that he is not sure if the football program will be reinstated. The local prosecutor is reportedly weighing options as to whether he will attempt to try the seven boys as adults.

Here is what I know for sure, and I do not have to be familiar with Sayreville to state this: These boys knew exactly what they were doing. Their age has nothing to do with it. When a group of people band together to restrain another person so that they can use their fingers to penetrate the victim’s body, everyone involved knows that what they are doing is wrong.

Sayreville's longtime coach, George Najjar    

Here is what else I know: When that same group of people commits the act repeatedly, there is clear intent to harm the victims. Intent to harm and commission of sex crimes are very adult behaviors.  Reportedly, there were four separate incidents in the Sayreville locker room, and authorities now want to know who else on the team witnessed the attacks on the younger players. The perpetrators should be imprisoned. According to New Jersey law, some of the seven alleged rapists could face up to 20 years in prison.

If this were an isolated incident, it would certainly be horrific enough, but the fact is that similar crimes have happened in many places in this country, perpetrated by many teenage boys. Last May, for example, three high school soccer players were convicted of crimes much like the Sayreville incident. The harshest sentence imposed was three months in a juvenile detention camp. The other two boys got probation.  In Greenfield, Iowa last April, members of the high school wrestling team allegedly punished a younger wrestler for missing practice by restraining him and penetrating him with a jump rope handle.  CBS New York reported in March that three high school track team members were accused of violently attacking another student athlete by hitting his genitals with a bottle and then penetrating him through his clothing with an object. In August, 2013, five high school student athletes in a suburb of Chicago were charged with restraining and digitally penetrating a fellow high school team member.  Other similar incidents have been reported at U.S. high schools, but the pattern is clear.

Also clear is the reluctance on the part of prosecutors to charge the teens as adults. My guess is that had said prosecutors been restrained and anally penetrated in a locker room, had they experienced the terror of a sex crime, the humiliation of being so victimized, perhaps they would not be so quick to afford these boys the light, sometimes non-existent sentences they receive. These sex crimes are not rough housing on the school playground, or bullying in the high school cafeteria. They are sex crimes. In our society, sex crimes are severely punishable. They are grownup transgressions that merit jury trials and imprisonment.

Sayreville vigil for alleged rape victims

Unlike high schoolers of the past, today’s teens have full access to the same reading materials, video presentations and other informational sources as adults have. Today’s 16 and 17-year-olds are a lot savvier about the dark sides of society than teens in the past. Everybody is wired or wireless and everybody has free entre into the realm of adult-oriented information.  Increased awareness at a younger age may not be society’s first choice, but it is the reality of our tech-flooded world. 

Maybe overexposure, or too much information too soon in life has contributed to juveniles committing very adult crimes. Who knows. But let’s not blame parents, schools, television, movies, music and the Internet. It almost isn’t necessary to figure out who to blame for 16-year-olds perpetrating heinous sex crimes against their peers. What is necessary is to make it stop. In my mind, that happens when juveniles start seeing other juveniles locked up for a long time.

And might it also be time to take football down from the pedestal we have put it on? Word is that many, many residents of Sayreville are livid that the superintendent of schools cancelled the football season. It appears the some townspeople, while not unsympathetic to the juvenile victims of the sex crimes, are far more passionate when they talk about their outrage at the

season being prematurely terminated. What is going on that the game of football has become of greater import than the well being of their own children? It is largely varsity athletes that commit these crimes in high schools. What is the message being sent to their peers when these varsity rapists get away with it?

Bottom line: In 2010, almost 10,000 minors were arrested for sex offenses, including rape, according to a report from the FBI. Their punishments and jail sentences varied from state to state, but it is unlikely that many or any of them are still in jail today. The numbers are telling us the story. All we have to do is listen, and act. Keywords: ZERO TOLERANCE.

IS POPE BENEDICT XVI THE NEW RICHARD NIXON?

For the past decade, the Catholic priesthood has become synonymous with pedophilia. That is unfortunate, because the odds are that the majority of priests do not sexually abuse children. However, enough of them have done so that now, we laypeople out here are highly suspicious of Catholic priests. Reportedly, the U.S. dioceses have paid up to $2 billion in victim settlements in the past eight years. Who can forget former Archbishop Bernard Francis Law of Boston, whose complicity in covering up sexual abuse of children by priests resulted in his resignation? For those who haven’t thought much of Law since his resignation, you should know he is currently serving in Rome as an “archpriest,” which means he is the authority over several parishes. He is also a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family, which the Catholic Church defines as the body that "promotes the pastoral care of families, protects their rights and dignity in the Church and in civil society.” Law is typical in the church, in that even priests who have personally fondled children or raped them are currently still the in the papal fold. They are often just moved to different geographic locations and placed in lower profile positions.

Just to put the issue of sexual abuse by priests in perspective, watch and listen to the courtroom testimony of Father Patrick Gerald O’Donnell of Spokane, who admitted sexually molesting more than 30 teenage boys, many of them inside the church rectory.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be some dangerous disconnect between the Vatican and societal morality? Lately, the church’s morality has been called into question throughout Europe. Among the most high profile issues that Pope Benedict XVI has to deal with right now is alleged misconduct on the part of his own brother, George Ratzinger. Ratzinger has publicly admitted that sexual abuse of members of a boys’ choir occurred in Regensburg, Germany. Ratzinger directed the school where the abuse happened for three decades. For his part, the Pope says he knew nothing about it. Oh, apparently the Pope also knew nothing of Ratzinger’s common practice of slapping children in the face to discipline them. Are you buying any of this? No, I didn’t think you were. The Pope thinks we’re buying it. That has to do with powerful, egotistical leaders in religion, industry and government worldwide who believe their own b.s. and somehow convince themselves that you will believe it, too.

Does it sound a little Richard Nixonish to you? It does to me. When illegal behavior was taking place in all of the ranks that reported to then-President Nixon back in the early 1970s, Nixon’s initial position was one of complete ignorance. Of course,later we found out that he knew everything and even helped to keep it quiet. Does the Pope know everything, and how much has he done and is he currently doing to keep it quiet? Nixon resigned. Should Pope Benedict resign? Some say absolutely he should. It’s not the first time a Pope has had to step down. Okay, it last happened 600 years ago, but who’s counting years when supposed holy men across the globe are raping children?

Not the 53-year-old Austrian man who recently went on the radio to detail his own sexual abuse at the hands of Austrian priests decades ago. His story is quite telling, because the alleged abuser, Bruno Becker, offered the victim 5,000 Euros ($6,790) to keep quiet about it, calling the payment compensation, rather than hush money. That, of course begs the question: How does the church decide how much cash to ante up for prolonged and repeated incidents of molestation? Did Becker just pull that figure of 5,000 Euros out of thin air? And if so, is there truly anything arbitrary about child rape? Is oral sex worth more Euros than say, genital fondling? Who gets the highest payment? Those who experienced penetration? Is there a sliding scale? I think not, and clearly the church thinks not, because the church is currently shaking in its holy boots as one report after another surfaces about priests using boys for sexual gratification. And so far, the church has been quite mixed in its reaction to European reports.

For example, the spokesperson (read: PR flack) for the Vatican, Federico Lombardi, was arrogant enough to make the following comment in the midst of the mounting reports of abuse: "All objective and informed people know that the issue [of child sexual abuse] is much wider, and to focus accusations only on the Church leads to a skewed perspective." So, if I’m hearing this correctly, Lombardi is saying, ‘everybody’s doing it, so don’t pick on us.’ Again, is it just me, or is there an incomprehensible disconnect between the Vatican and the world at large? Let’s pull numbers out of the air like the church does: If say, oh, I don’t know…10% of child sexual abuse happens through the church and 90% happens everywhere else, should that 10% get a free pass? Lombardi is desperate, and therefore, we know the Pope is desperate. Kind of like Richard Nixon was desperate when he knew he could no longer hide the illegal activity of his administration.

By some estimates, there are more than 14,000 known victims of sexual abuse by U.S. priests since the 1960’s by up to 5,000 priests. And that’s just one country. How many children have had to live with their own dirty little secrets worldwide, many who will never feel able to come forward with their stories? Right now, for example, the Dutch Catholic church is relying on an independent commission to investigate more than 200 claims of reported sexual abuse by priests. In addition to Ratzinger’s school, priests in two other Catholic schools in Germany stand accused of beating and sexually molesting students. In Ireland the issue has become so pervasive that the Irish government issued a report that clearly details widespread sexual abuse of children by priests over the past three decades. Pope Benedict recently called Irish bishops to Rome to reprimand them. A nice high-profile p.r. move, but who is being held accountable and will anybody go to jail?

That’s the billion-dollar question. Why aren’t the rapists being put away for life like other rapists? If U.S. Congressmen raped children, would they be simply reprimanded? If executives with Microsoft, AIG or Bank of America raped children, would they just be reassigned to another city in a different position? If Harvard University teachers raped children, would they merely be called into the Chancellor’s office and slapped on the wrist? What is going on here with the Catholic Church and why are not hundreds or perhaps thousands of priests worldwide being tried in courtrooms and sent to prison with all of the other pedophiles and rapists?

And, finally: What is it that attracts pedophiles to the priesthood, and is this really the bigger issue at hand? If there is a silent, clandestine understanding somewhere that the priesthood has an immoral sexual component that has been covertly perpetuating child rape for decades and decades, perhaps the gig is finally up. The buck stops with Benedict. For my part, I am just egalitarian enough to be fully ready for this criminal sin to be stopped now. If the Pope is complicit in this dangerous sham, he needs to resign now. His successor needs to take on the international crimes of sexual abuse by priests as job one. And governments, worldwide, need to prosecute priests in the exact same judicial manner they treat all other pedophiles and rapists.