The ongoing Sex Abuse scandal

Not that one.  This one.

It’s been a few years since the media did a serious, ongoing focus on the Church’s sex abuse scandal.  It still covers a story when something happens.  But for the longest time, you couldn’t go a month without some outlet focusing on the scandal, even if there were no developments in the story. Yet that’s nothing compared to the lack of coverage that our overall problem with sex abuse tends to receive.

The problem in our schools is rampant, and hardly anything new.  I’ve seen this in every school district we’ve lived in.  When I switched majors to Education in the late 80s, they were still having discussions about sex abuse.  Should teachers caught be turned in, or just moved to another school district?  Really.  I sat in on an actual debate over what to do with teachers who sexually abuse students.

And yet for years, the focus was mainly on the Church’s horrible mishandling of the crisis to the point where we’ve, once again, ignored the larger picture.  Those who tried to exploit the Church scandal by scoring ideological points only muddled the issue.  Today it still remains a problem in our society, and in some places, a scandal.  One that barely makes a minor splash in our collective consciousness.