Two unrelated stories in the news, but I see a common theme.
This ...
DSK Déjà Vu - Katha Pollitt, The Nation
[...] DSK’s predatory behavior was always common knowledge, the stuff of jokes, gossip and veiled allusions in the press. It was just called something else: seduction, love of women, even, proof of good health. It took a powerless outsider in a foreign country—the housekeeper had no idea that DSK, as one of the world’s most powerful men, was entitled to make violent use of her body—to take action. Now DSK’s defense attorney is saying the sex, if it took place, was consensual. Because nothing is more likely than that a housekeeper—a Muslim widow in a headscarf, no less—will leap at the chance to fellate a 62-year-old hotel guest who springs naked out of the bathroom ...
And this ....
The Vatican Comes Up Short - NYT editorial
[...] The [Vatican guidelines on sex abuse] directive came two days before a new study of the abuse problem that cites the sexual and social turmoil of the 1960s as a possible factor in priests’ crimes. This is a rather bizarre stab at sociological rationalization and, in any case, beside the point that church officials went into denial and protected abusers ..... The Vatican guidelines note that abusing children is a matter for secular law and call for dioceses to create “clear and coordinated” policies by next year. But the continuing stress on church priority in what essentially are criminal offenses is disheartening ...
DSK had a rude shock when he abused beyond the reach of his powerful and protected milieu. I await the day when the powerful and protected in our church who have covered up sex abuse get the same kind of shock.
