NEW YORK
Times Herald-Record
Similar verdicts in similar cases in two Pennsylvania courtrooms last week provided a small measure of justice to some of the most vulnerable victims imaginable, young men who trusted older figures of authority who then abused them.
In Bellefonte, Pa., a jury quickly decided that Jerry Sandusky, a legendary part of the legendary Penn State football program, had systematically lured and abused these victims over decades. In Philadelphia a jury took almost two weeks before deciding that Msgr. William J. Lynn was guilty of endangering children because of his role in covering up abuses by Roman Catholic priests.
While the Sandusky case had the bigger media impact, the decision concerning the church could have much longer-lasting and wide ranging effects. For the first time, prosecutors were able to convince a jury of something that most people have already concluded, that failing to do something about this abuse is almost as despicable as the abuse itself. And when the cover-up has been an integral part of the institutions, as the cases showed it has been in Penn State and the church, the message is as clear as those warnings we see in another context: If you see something, say something.
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