Sexual Violence: Victims of abuse want Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church to Come Clean

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

It seems the Boy Scouts of America, the once revered institution that showed young boys how they could grow up to be real men is, much like the Catholic Church, a haven for pedophiles.

The Boy Scouts organizations were founded by the upper class British military officer Robert Baden Powel or 1^st Baron Baden Powel to give him one of his many titles. Powell was on the front lines in the spread of British colonialism and fought in India and Africa. The female equivalent in my youth in the UK was the Girl Guides. I suppose their purpose was to “guide” the young boys along the path to becoming the men, the rugged individualists and warriors for Jesus that would make the world a safer place for European colonial power and Christendom. The famous three C’s was their goal to be honest, Christianity, Civilization and Commerce. Cecil Rhodes, Rudyard Kipling and Livingston were big fans of the three C's.

We see this today with the continued virus like spread of Evangelic Christianity out of the US in to the former colonial world. Most of the relatively few US Americans I met in Northern Queensland were missionaries from the US heading to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to save the natives. When I think of this I am reminded of the Diego Rivera mural of the conquest of Mexico with the Conquistador, sword in hand held above a native and behind him the priest with the crucifix, the twin weapons of colonial power.

The Boy Scouts of America is in bankruptcy proceedings in order to protect its assets against some 275 law suits from victims of sexual abuse. There are also thousands of others whose claims have not yet been filed, some as young as five years old.

The bankruptcy proceedings are not only an effort to protect billions of dollars in “…land, buildings, cash and investments….”, the Boy Scouts of America owns, it is also an attempt to keep the internal findings of the organization closed to the public. Lawyers for the victims are pushing for  a list of more than 7,800 “alleged pedophiles” that the organization has in its internal files and wants to keep private. Adding to the already known cases are those who were sexually abused that the Scouts knew about and did nothing.

As this is occurring, the cases against the abuse of boys in the Catholic Church are ongoing. The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg PA has also filed for bankruptcy after Pennsylvania’s state attorney general released a grand jury report that detailed decades of sexual abuse of young children. The Wall Street Journal reports that since the release of the grand jury’s report, hundreds more have come forward with claims of sexual abuse by priests.

Money plays a huge role in all of this perversion and the cover up. The football scandal and abuse of young boys was another example. There was so much money involved people had too much too lose, the pressure too great

The reports we read about in the mass media about sexual abuse of children is surely the tip of the iceberg. The family is perhaps the greatest source of child abuse and infanticide as it is safe to a great degree as the family is some sacred social unit blessed by the religious authorities, corrupt and rotten institutions themselves. Violence against women is also protected to a great degree by the supposed sanctity of the patriarchal capitalist family structure. The family is an economic unit and while women, in western society anyway, have made great progress and achieved some financial independence from men, money and in the US especially, ownership of property, plays a huge roll in maintaining the family unit long after the love or what one thought was love has gone.

It amazes me how people can question why women waited for years before coming forward in the Harvey Weinstein case. The reasons they give are so obviously valid;, everything you have worked for can be taken away. The same in all the examples of sexual abuse like those working class women who came forward to expose the rapist and friend of Trump Roy Brown of Alabama fame. And there are many women that have accused the degenerate in the White House. What's happened there? And you wonder why they keep their mouths shut. Then there is the shame, the guilt. 

I worked in a fairly safe workplace compared to the private sector but sometimes it was impossible to get some “tough guys” to sign a damn petition to defend someone from harassment. One of them was a right wing character who said that if the government came after his guns he’d take his “piece” or all of his pieces, and head up to the mountains. What on earth is this macho, Rambo nonsense? You can’t even sign a petition to support a co-worker your afraid of reprisal. And as that comedian said recently, if you support the Second Amendment because you're afraid of the government you don't know how tanks work.

There is that ancient riddle, I can’t remember the source, but it asked what first walks on four legs, then on two then on three. The answer is the human; first as a baby, (four) then as an adult (two) and then as an old aged person with a cane. Children and the aged are among the most vulnerable in society and often the most abused. As I get older I look back on my youth and how it was drummed in to my head to respect older people. You got up from a seat when an older person needed one or a pregnant woman or the disabled. Someone robbing a person in a wheelchair would have been almost unheard of. How times have changed. Capitalist ideology, naked self interest, individualism, personal gratification with no concern for others, and the break up of community and the sheer desperation and poverty people find themselves is at the root of this. Taking advantage of the weak and having that type of personality is a virtue and the road to success. There will be great shocks out of which a powerful working class movement will arise in the US and it is through these struggles the collective consciousness of the working class will express itself.

The Boy Scouts of America has seen a huge decline in membership over the past decade and the credibility of the Catholic Church, once the official church of the European Feudal Aristocracy and then Capitalism has hit rock bottom. Society would be better off were both these institutions to take the path of the Dodo.