By Tom Royer
The Land Assistant Editor
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You try to set a good example for them, provide them with the necessities of life, encourage them to accomplish their goals, offer a shoulder to cry on when they're down, discipline them with they get out of line, love them with all your heart, and pray they notice how much smarter you're getting as they get older.
I've got two teenagers. They haven't figured out how smart I am yet, but I'm still holding out hope.
Ultimately, though, as someone who's relatively new to this parenting thing, I'm beginning to understand that a parent's ego takes a back seat to whatever is best for the child. It's difficult because that "whatever" may not be what I want; it might not be what I'd do. Regardless, a kid's safety and well-being must always be at the top of any responsible adult's priority list. And of course we know that that isn't always the case.
Two horrific local stories have been making the front page recently in Mankato, where The Land is published. In one, a man was found guilty of first-degree assault against his 2-month-old son, the infant's body discovered by doctors to have received dozens of fractures to his arms, legs and ribs. The boy has a twin brother, and a sister who was about a year old at the time of the assault.
In the other story, witnesses saw a man smash his SUV into his ex-wife's car, pinning it against a tree, before he got out and shot her at close range in front of their three children, ages 7, 5 and 4. He then took the children from the car, stole another vehicle at gunpoint and drove away; he was arrested a short time later after a pursuit. The 17 counts against the man include several first-degree murder charges, all this reportedly spawning from a long-running custody dispute.
In the first story, the man and his girlfriend's parental rights were terminated by court order, and the three children, now approximately 3 and 4 years old, are in the process of being adopted. If they're lucky, it will be a very long time before they're even aware of the damage caused by their birth father, and the boy will have no memory of being assaulted. Hopefully the three older children whose mother was murdered before their eyes will also find an adoptive family to care for them soon, but it's impossible to believe they won't carry emotional scars for life.
In each case, the legal system was forced to step in and exact justice when a so-called adult was criminally irresponsible. But what about when the legal system isn't allowed to step in, and justice is never served?
The crisis within the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse against children is staggering. While the percentage of pedophile priests is clearly very small (and statistically similar to the general population) the controversy here is not so much the crime but the punishment.
Outside the church, an alleged sex offender will be arrested, tried and imprisoned if found guilty. The Vatican's systemic failing is its practice of keeping the abuse cases hidden within the church instead of reporting them as crimes; shuffling pedophiles from parish to parish and endangering more children rather than punishing the assailants. Penance has been mistaken for justice.
Pope Benedict XVI's comments from Portugal on May 11 appeared to be a step in the right direction, acknowledging that the priests in question, and the Church officials who protected them, are the problem rather than the victims or the media. But despite the Pope's words of assurance, the focus effectively continues to be on the well-being of the Church - what the Vatican wants - rather than the well-being of the children.
Children deserve to know that the adults charged to protect, counsel and lead them will actually deliver. I'm still holding out hope that Benedict will truly follow through.
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Tom Royer is assistant editor of The Land. He may be reached at troyer@thelandonline.com.
