Pennsylvania Grand Jury, East Penn Plagued by Secrets
By Bill White
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack This is a column about secrets. Secrets that the Catholic Church has kept from its parishioners and everyone else about the way some of its priests have preyed on children and the way church leaders covered it up. Secrets their victims have kept, festering in some cases for decades because they were too frightened, embarrassed or confused to speak up. Secrets parents try to keep from their children about sexual orientation and other uncomfortable subjects. Secrets some schools try to keep from their parents. Certainly there are times when secrecy makes sense. Loose lips sink ships and all that. But far more often, it's healthy, even liberating, to expose these secrets to the light of day so they can be addressed in the open. "Once exposed, a secret loses all its power." — author Ann Aguirre. I suppose if I were accused of being a child molester or of covering for one, I would prefer not to have the details published in a Pennsylvania grand jury report. So it's understandable that some priests want to block the release of the impending report on child sex abuse in six dioceses, including Allentown. What's less understandable, to me, is why the state Supreme Court is letting them do it, unless it intends to upend the grand jury system that already has produced illuminating reports about abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. I'm in awe of the courage so many men and women have shown in appearing before these grand juries to speak their secrets out loud, in some cases for the first time. Can you imagine the mixture of anticipation and fear many of these victims felt as the date approached for letting the world know what happened to them? Or the devastation of seeing the Supreme Court choose secrecy, at least for a little longer? I can, because I've talked to so many victims of child sex abuse, by clergy and by others — family members, coaches, mentors, teachers — in a position of trust. I've heard them talk about the guilt, the embarrassment, the betrayal, the anger that has driven so many victims to silence, to depression, to suicide. And the liberating feeling when they broke the silence. "If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself." — George Orwell, 1984 Most of these crimes have nothing to do with the clergy, but certainly they are the focus now. When men who in a very real sense symbolize God betray you by sexually abusing you or by helping pedophiles find new victims instead of stopping them, religious faith becomes another casualty. These secrets have been hidden far too long already. So I support all the efforts being made to force the Supreme Court to release this grand jury report and end this monstrous conspiracy of silence. In that context, the East Penn School District's conflict over videos on LGBTQ acceptance seems trivial. But in its own way, it's still important, and it speaks to the corrosiveness of secrecy. To my mind, the only ones who have distinguished themselves in this conflict are the students who chose these videos and have defended their airing on Emmaus High School's morning announcements. I love the idea that students would take the initiative in protecting LGBTQ kids from bullying and try to help straight students understand them better. What I don't love is: • The kneejerk reaction of some parents that they and their children are threatened by positive messages about people with a different sexual orientation. • The school district's refusal to share links to the videos with parents who requested them, although parents were provided with titles and descriptions. Let's start with that second part. Then-Superintendent Michael Schilder claimed it wasn't appropriate to share the actual videos because they were student work and expression, not part of the curriculum. That argument might make sense if these were videos created by the students, but they weren't. They were created elsewhere, and the students just selected the ones they wanted to air. I get it. Parents determined to "protect" their children from different ideas probably will find specific things in those videos they don't like, and defending those specific elements may be uncomfortable. But treating the videos as secrets just compounds the conflict, not to mention the impression that they are too controversial — too dirty? — to be shared. School districts should be open books about what their students are reading and seeing. "Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned." — James Joyce At the same time, they should be prepared to defend the importance of exposing children to different ideas, even if the parents don't agree with them. Certainly that's true for videos that boil down to the idea that we should accept people for who they are, not try to bully them into being more like us. Students won't turn gay because they watch a video of upbeat gay people. But if it gives them a little more understanding, a little more empathy, that's a plus for everyone who isn't advocating hatred. I attended Monday night's school board meeting, where students again defended the videos and some parents attacked their airing and the secrecy surrounding them. The board also was criticized — correctly, I think — for not videotaping and posting its meetings. Given the technology that's easily available today, every school board and governmental body should be doing this. The board had nothing to say about the student videos during the meeting, but it was preceded by an executive session that reportedly focused on this subject. That's unfortunate. These are important issues for everyone in the district, and they deserve to be discussed in the open, not behind closed doors. As Buddha supposedly once said: "Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth." In Harrisburg, in East Penn, in six Catholic dioceses and everywhere else, the truth will set us free. Or at least begin the healing. bill.white@mcall.com 610-820-6105
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