WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2010

MICHAEL GERSON

The pope’s bad rap on sex abuse W

B

y any human standard, Pope Benedict XVI and the Amer- ican Catholic Church are get-

ting a bad rap in the current out- break of outrage over clerical sexual abuse. Far from being indifferent or complicit, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was among the first in Rome to take the scandal seriously. During much of his service as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the future pope had no responsibility for investigating most cases of sexual abuse. Local bishops were in charge — and some failed spectacularly in their moral duties. It was not until 2001 that Pope John Paul II charged Ratzinger with re- viewing every credible case of sex- ual abuse. While poring through these documents, Ratzinger’s eyes were opened. The church became more active in removing abusive priests — whom Ratzinger de- scribed rightly as “filth” — both through canonical trials and admin- istrative action. “Benedict,” says the Rev. Thomas Reese of Georgetown University, “grew in his understanding of the crisis. Like many other bishops at the beginning, he didn’t understand it. . . . But he grew in his under- standing because he listened to what the U.S. bishops had to say. He in fact got it quicker than other peo- ple in the Vatican.”

And the American Catholic

Church — once in destructive denial — has confronted the problem di- rectly. It is difficult to contend that justice was done in the cases of some prominent offenders and the bishops who protected and reas- signed them. But it is also difficult to deny that the church has made progress with a zero-tolerance pol- icy. The vast majority of abuse cases took place decades ago. In 2009, six credible allegations of abuse con- cerning people who are minors were reported to the U.S. bishops — in a church with 65 million members. Some will allow none of these

facts to get in the way of a good cler- ical scandal. Editorial cartoons en- gage in gleeful anti-clericalism. The implicit charge is that the Catholic Church is somehow discredited by the existence of human sinfulness — a doctrine it has taught for more than two millennia. Many of the current accusations, as I said, are not fair by human stan- dards. But the Christian church, in its varied expressions, is account- able to not merely human standards because it is supposed to be more than a human institution. Apart from the mental, emotional and spiritual harm done to children, this has been the most disturbing aspect of the initial Catholic reaction to the abuse scandal over the past few dec- ades: the reduction of the church to one more self-interested organiza- tion. In case after case, church lead- ers have attempted (and failed) to protect the church from scandal — like a White House trying to contain a bad news story or an oil company avoiding responsibility for a spill. From one perspective, this is un- derstandable. A church exists in a real world of donor relations and le- gal exposure. But the normal proc- ess of crisis management can in- volve a theological error — often re- peated in the history of the religion. It is the consistent temptation of faith leaders — Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Hindu — to practice the religion of the tribe. The goal is to seek public recognition of their own theological convictions and the health of their own religious institu- tions. For many centuries of West- ern history, the Christian church vied and jostled for influence along with other interests, pursuing a trib- al agenda at the expense of Jews, heretics, “infidels” and ambitious princes. The mind-set can still be detected, in milder forms, whenever Christian leaders talk of “taking back America for Christ” or pay hush money to avoid scandal for the church. The tribe must be defended. But the religion of the tribe is in- herently exclusive, sorting “us” from “them.” So it undermines a founda- tional teaching of Christianity — a radical human equality in need and in grace. The story of modern Christian

history has been the partial, hopeful movement away from the religion of the tribe and toward a religion of humanity — a theology that defends a universal ideal of human rights and dignity, whose triumph benefits everyone. And the Catholic Church has led this transition. Once a reac- tionary opponent of individualism and modernity, it is now one of the leading global advocates for univer- sal human rights and dignity. The Catholic Church’s initial reac- tion to the abuse scandal was often indefensible. Now, through its hon- esty and transparency, it can dem- onstrate a commitment to universal dignity — which includes every vic- tim of abuse.

mgerson@globalengage.org

KATHLEEN PARKER

Pride or prejudice?

hen you’re Michael Steele, there’s no waking up and thinking:

Ahhhh, at least the worst is over.

Whatever the week, Monday is the start of another very bad one. No exception to the trend, this week began dramatically. First, Steele’s chief of staff, Ken McKay, resigned in another Republican National Committee stab (cue soundtrack from “Psy- cho”) at damage control in the wake of prof- ligate spending and that whole bondage- stripper thing. Next, Steele’s longtime political consult-

ing firm, On Message, severed ties with the RNC head.His relentless off-messaging ap- parently was hurting the company’s brand. Nothing personal, of course. High regard and all that. “We wish him well,” said con- sultant Curt Anderson, as he lowered him- self into the Titanic’s last lifeboat. And that was the good part of the week. Still to come was reaction to the latest on the list of “Things Michael Steele Shouldn’t Have Said”: It’s about race. Appearing recently on ABC’s “Good

Morning America,” Steele told George Stephanopoulos that being African Amer- ican has magnified his travails. Stephano- poulos had asked Steele whether his race gave him a “slimmer margin for error.” “The honest answer is yes,” said Steele. “It just is. Barack Obama has a slimmer mar- gin. We all — a lot of folks do. It’s a different role for me to play and others to play, and that’s just the reality of it.” Except that African American Repub- licans aren’t buying it. For starters, Steele was elected by the predominantly white party. After months of unforced errors, he can’t now turn around and charge his party with racism. Actually, racism would mean expecting less from an African American than from a white counterpart. If you can’t play the race card with your

own race, you might be in a heap of denial. As Juliette Ochieng wrote in a blog item that was picked up by BookerRising.net, the black, moderate-conservative news site: “Mr. Steele’s margin for error is smaller than it was when he first became RNC chair due entirely to the fact that he has made so many errors and due to the fact that he seems incapable of learning from them.” It’s not clear who Steele thinks his audi- ence is when he deals the race card. Mean- while, black Republicans have their own complaints about Steele, principally that the RNC leader has failed to support Afri- can American candidates.

RUTH MARCUS

mitted suicide in January after being relent- lessly bullied at school and online. My heart aches for her younger sister, who found Phoebe hanging in the stairwell of the family’s home. A scarf the sister had bought her as a Christmas gift was knotted around Phoebe’s neck. My heart aches for Phoebe, who arrived

from Ireland last fall only to endure months of abuse from classmates at South Hadley High School, the apparent result of Phoebe’s brief fling with a popular football player. My heart aches, but I also question the wis- dom of filing criminal charges against nine of Phoebe’s former classmates, as happened last week. Bullying should be taken seriously — by teachers, administrators, parents and, yes, fel- low students. I’m doubtful, though, that crimi- nal prosecution is the best way to punish or prevent it.

Nine students were charged, including three girls not named because they are juve- niles. Two boys, 17 and 18, were accused of statutory rape; the age of consent in Mas- sachusetts is 16.

One of the juveniles is charged with “assault by means of a dangerous weapon, to wit: a bottle, can or similar beverage container” — apparently throwing a soda can at Phoebe as she walked home from school the day she died. The other charges include stalking, ha- rassment, violation of civil rights and, my fa- vorite, disturbance of a school assembly.

HAROLD MEYERSON

ordan Yospe has a job you couldn’t make up. He is, according to a report in Monday’s New York Times, a Los Angeles attorney who works with screenwriters and pro- ducers to place name-brand products in movies. As the cost of filmmaking continues to rise,

This movie is brought to you by . . .

J

“product placement” has become a serious source of production funding. The more a product is shown or used in a movie, the Times reports, “the more a brand pays for the appear- ance, offering fees ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million a film.” But Yospe’s niche — “brand integration,” as

his law firm’s Web site nicely terms it — takes the concept further by starting the process ear- lier. Rather than have studio executives arbi- trarily edit in a scene set, say, in an Exxon gas station as production is wrapping up, Yospe meets with filmmakers and writers while their pictures are still on the drawing boards to help the product placement become more integral to the narrative and thematic flow. And clinch- ing deals for certain brands can affect the cast- ing and other major aspects of a film. The Times story begins with a script confer- ence between Yospe and the writer of a thriller-to-be. Yospe suggests that at a certain point in the picture, the heroes might get hun- gry. “There’s no fast-food scene at all,” he points out, “but they have to eat.”

Golden Arches, here we come. Running a studio has always been about making money, of course, and moguls have ever been subject to the demands of the bot- tom line. In 1941, RKO studio chief George Schaefer was even offered a pot of money by other studio heads not to release “Citizen Kane”; they feared the wrath of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, whose life served as the basis for Orson Welles’s master- piece. (Schaefer, fortunately, declined the offer.) But suppose attorney Yospe had been around when Welles, producer John Houseman and co-screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz were working on the script.

Yospe: It’s great, guys; it’s terrific. But I have this suggestion, right here on the first page. Kane is holding this snow globe; he says “Rose- bud” and croaks. I think we can get a bundle with just one little switch. Instead of “Rosebud,” how about “Flexible Flyer”?

Had Yospean perspectives only been given their due in earlier times, the historic tension between art and commerce might have dimin- ished. Imagine: Isolde belting out “Liebestod” over Tristan’s dead body and a tastefully arrayed casket from Munich’s leading mortician. The Seder table in “The Last Supper” fes- tooned with flagons of Manischewitz red. Or Denmark’s most famous prince con-

time,” he asks,

When he himself might his quietus [final set- tlement] make With a bare bodkin [dagger]? The Ginsu that can cleave Through nails, tin cans, and still cut a

tomato Parchment thin! The operators standeth

by –

But wait! There’s more!

The rise of product placement to the dizzy- ing heights of Yospehood is partly the result of the decline of the stable studio system of yore. Where once eight Hollywood studios each turned out a film a week, today every picture must scramble for its own funding. Filmmak- ing is subservient to dealmaking, much as, in the larger economy, manufacturing has been pushed aside by finance. It’s not all about the product anymore; it’s about the deal. Every system has its own logic, but none of those systems — be they theocratic, feudal, cap- italist or communist — has a logic that’s ulti- mately compatible with that of the artist. The Soviets had censors sit in at their filmmakers’ story conferences. We have Yospe. Not to equate the two, but what the hell are these guys doing there?

meyersonh@washpost.com

The wrong hammer for bullies

M

y heart aches for the parents of Phoe- be Prince, the 15-year-old Massachu- setts high school student who com-

If this sounds derisive, it’s not because I doubt the seriousness of the conduct but because the specific counts underscore how clumsy a tool criminal law is to deal with such behavior. Charging nine students is casting an awfully wide net. The statutory rape charges are especially troubling, assuming the sex was consensual. Teenage boys engage in this conduct with teenage girls every day without being pro- secuted. That activity, however unwise, does not suddenly acquire criminal overtones because the girl involved killed herself. In announcing the charges, District

Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel described “a nearly three-month campaign of verbally abusive, assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm . . . relentless activity directed toward Phoebe, designed to humiliate her and to make it impossible for her to remain at school.” The bullying, Scheibel said, “far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels.” How does she know — and do we routinely want prosecutors making these calls? Slate’s Emily Bazelon reported that among South Hadley students, “the prevailing sentiment was that, yes, Phoebe had been mistreated but not in some unprecedented way. ‘A lot of it was normal girl drama,’ one girl told me. ‘If you want to label it bullying, then I’ve bullied girls and girls have bullied me. . . . It was one of the worst things I’ve heard of some girls doing to another girl. But it wouldn’t have hurt most people that much.’ ” The criminalization of bullying risks a

STEVEN SENNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Michael Steele speaks at Harvard University on Feb. 3.

One of the more outspoken among

these is Jean Howard-Hill, a political sci- ence professor at the University of Tennes- see at Chattanooga who is also a lawyer and Republican activist. And, some might say . . . a troublemaker? “I wear the label very proudly,” she says. Howard-Hill is a familiar name in party politics, especially in Tennessee, where she is running for Congress after decades of recruiting blacks to the GOP. A Georgia- born scholar whose childhood memories include a cross burning in her front yard, she seems an unlikely Republican. “You have to be a little crazy to be an Af-

rican American Republican. I admit that.” But Howard-Hill sees the Republican

Party as her natural home and, important- ly, the best route for economic empowerment.

“Some of us are tired of being poor.” When she goes into black churches to preach the GOP Gospel, Howard-Hill re- minds congregants that blacks were first elected to Congress as Republicans during Reconstruction and that their birthright was stolen by the Dixiecrats. In South Carolina, rising Republican

star Marvin Rogers, a candidate for the South Carolina Legislature, is telegraphing

the same message with his book “Silence Makes the Loudest Sound.” Basically, con- servative blacks want their party back. But many political candidates are being hampered in part by a lack of access to the RNC coffers, says Howard-Hill. She blames Steele and amends his different- standards defense accordingly. “I would say [blacks are] treated differ- ently within the party. But in terms of integ- rity, the standard is the same. Michael needs to own up because it’s not race. From day one, he has messed up. . . . If he wants to play the race card, play it with us.” To be fair to Steele, he didn’t introduce

the race issue and was responding to a question. Nevertheless, his answer and the African American Republican re- sponse have shed light on Steele’s central flaw. As always, it isn’t the mistake that brings you down; it’s the coverup. In Steele’s case, the coverup is pride —

an unwillingness to take personal respon- sibility. Whether it’s the poor staffer who approved $1,900 for a strip club or the chief of staff who got the boot, it’s always someone else’s fault.

Steele needs to face the truth and set himself — and his party — free.

kathleenparker@washpost.com

KLMNO

R

DAVID IGNATIUS

Obama’s Mideast plan

D

espite recent turbulence in U.S. relations with Israel, President Obama is “seriously consider-

ing” proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian con- flict, according to two top adminis- tration officials. “Everyone knows the basic out- lines of a peace deal,” said one of the senior officials, citing the agreement that was nearly reached at Camp Da- vid in 2000 and in subsequent nego- tiations. He said that an American plan, if launched, would build upon past progress on such issues as bor- ders, the “right of return” for Pales- tinian refugees and the status of Je- rusalem. The second senior official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same” as what has been agreed in previous bargaining. The American peace plan would

be linked with the issue of confront- ing Iran, which is Israel’s top priority, explained the second senior official. He described the issues as two halves of a single strategic problem: “We want to get the debate away from set- tlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other coun- tries in the region,” as well as the Is- raelis and Palestinians. “Incrementalism hasn’t worked,” continued the second official, ex- plaining that the United States can- not allow the Palestinian problem to keep festering — providing fodder for Iran and other extremists. “As a glob- al power with global responsibilities, we have to do something.” He said the plan would “take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sov- ereignty in a way that makes sense.” The White House is considering

detailed interagency talks to frame the strategy and form a political con- sensus for it. The second official lik- ened the process to the review that produced Obama’s strategy for Af- ghanistan and Pakistan. He said the administration could formally launch the Middle East initiative by this fall.

White House interest in proposing

slippery slope down the age range. In Waltham, Mass., in January an 11-year-old was charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — using her foot and a locker door — and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon using scissors. The kids who bullied Phoebe Prince should be punished — suspended, expelled, required to attend counseling. Still, to be a teenager is to do stupid things. The teenage brain is a work in progress. The prefrontal cortex, the part linked to impulse control, judgment and decision-making, is still maturing. This is why all teenagers need adult supervision, from parents and teachers. And it is why not enough responsibility has been placed on those whose brains were fully developed: the school staff who apparently knew of the harassment and did not do enough to stop it. As Scheibel reported, “The investigation has revealed that certain faculty, staff and administrators of the high school also were alerted to the harassment of Phoebe Prince before her death.” The school says it did what it could when it

knew. To its credit, it had brought in an expert on bullying even before Phoebe’s problems came to light. Still, the consultant told USA Today that when she returned to the school after Phoebe’s death, “I was told there was no visible sign these kids had faced consequences for what they’d done.” As a legal matter, this is not a crime. In a broader sense, it is nothing short of criminal.

marcusr@washpost.com

a peace plan has been growing in re- cent months, but it accelerated after the blow-up that followed the March 9 Israeli announcement, during Vice President Biden’s visit, that Israel would build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. U.S. officials began searching for bolder ways to address Israeli and Palestinian concerns, rather than continuing the same stale debates. Obama’s attention was focused by

a March 24 meeting at the White House with six former national secu- rity advisers. The group has been meeting privately every few months at the request of Gen. Jim Jones, who currently holds the job. In the session two weeks ago, the group had been talking about global issues for per- haps an hour when Obama walked in and asked what was on people’s minds.

Brent Scowcroft, who served as

templating whether or not to be:

“Who would bear the whips and scorns of

national security adviser for presi- dents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, spoke up first, according to a senior administration official. He urged Obama to launch a peace ini- tiative based on past areas of agree- ment; he was followed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security ad- viser for Jimmy Carter, who de- scribed some of the strategic param- eters of such a plan. Support for a new approach was also said to have been expressed by Sandy Berger and Colin Powell, who served as national security advisers for presidents Bill Clinton and Ron- ald Reagan, respectively. The consen- sus view was apparently shared by the other two attendees, Frank Car- lucci and Robert C. McFarlane from the Reagan years. Obama’s embrace of a peace plan would reverse the administration’s initial strategy, which was to try to coax concessions from the Israelis and Palestinians, with the United States offering “bridging proposals” later. This step-by-step process was favored by George Mitchell, the presi- dent’s special representative for the Middle East, who believed a similar approach had laid the groundwork for his breakthrough in Northern Ire- land peace talks. The fact that Obama is weighing the peace plan marks his growing confidence in Jones, who has been considering this approach for the past year. But the real strategist in chief is Obama himself. If he decides to launch a peace plan, it would mark a return to the ambitious themes the president sounded in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. A political battle royal is likely to begin soon, with Israeli officials and their supporters in the United States protesting what they fear would be an American attempt to impose a set- tlement and arguing to focus instead on Iran. The White House rejoinder is expressed this way by one of the senior officials: “It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both.”

davidignatius@washpost.com

A17 Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60