Wednesday, July 16, 2014

On Priests and Imams

Here’s what it’s come to: the banner headline in today’s printed version of El Nuevo Día quotes the Secretary of Justice saying, Quedan protegidos los pederastas (Pederasts Remain Protected).
And here’s what’s worse…
My reaction?
That’s news?
The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has decided to cave in to the Catholic Church, specifically the diocese of Arecibo, and allow the church to withhold documents requested by the Justice Department related to abusive priests. Why? Because some of the victims chose to tell the church, and all that communication is “confidential.”
Here’s what happened, or at least what I presume happened: some kids got abused, walked around wounded for months or years, and finally got the courage to go to the church and complain. Not surprising, because listening for fifteen minutes to the morning radio shows in Puerto Rico will tell you exactly what you don’t want to have happen to you. And that’s being the topic of the day.
If you know anything about the dynamics of sexual abuse, you’ll know that the victim, paradoxically, usually feels responsible or guilty for his or her own abuse, and that it takes a level of maturity not often seen in kids to have the strength to confront the adult world, especially when that adult world is wearing a Roman collar. So the likelihood is that most of the victims were kids, and most of the victims coming forward were young adults who reported abuse years after it happened.
So the Supreme Court has ruled that a lower court judge has to look at all the documents, determine if the complainant is an adult, and then ask the person if he / she wants the documents released to Justice.
Guys? We’re talking about crimes here.
However, so loopy is our need to “protect” religious freedom, covering up abusive priests may be perfectly legal; here’s Wikipedia on the topic:
A communication is "confidential" if made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.
Yeah? So if I sit in an office and tell the bishop that the parish priest had his hand on my crotch four years ago, that’s confidential?
Yup, and that’s why we have seven priests in Arecibo who have been defrocked, and who are all walking around, or perhaps lurking outside school playgrounds, reenacting all those lurid 1950’s educational films. And does anybody think out there that those priests got defrocked for something that wasn’t illegal?
It doesn’t stop surprising me, the stuff that religious people get themselves up to, because who knew that the largest chain of charter schools is run—maybe—by Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic Imam from Turkey, now living in the Poconos?
Here’s what the website for the chain’s Texas branch has to say:
Our mission at Harmony is to prepare each student for higher education by providing a safe, caring, and collaborative atmosphere featuring a quality, student-centered educational program with a strong emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 
In Numbers:
            40 Campuses (24 T-STEM schools) 
            25,000 Students
            2,276 Faculty and Staff
            Student-to-Teacher Ratio of 14-to-1
            100 percent Graduation Rate for Seniors
            100 percent College Acceptance Rate
Umm… 100% college acceptance? 100% graduation rate?
Well, if true, that would account for the waiting list of some 30,000 kids—more kids than are currently enrolled in the system. And in the video below, the kids certainly look happy, and the school is a knockout. True, most of the teachers are Turkish, and some of them are substantially less fluent in English than I am in Spanish. Which is odd, since some of them are teaching…English.
And that 100% Graduation Rate? Well, here’s one less-than-gruntled account by a teacher fired by a Gülen school:
When it came time for OATs, as they were called then, testing was a disaster. Several Turkish men arrived and pulled “at risk” students from their classrooms, taking them to the moldy rooms in small groups, despite the lack of written documentation allowing accommodations. The week after testing, I went to school on a Saturday morning in order to keep ahead of my planning, and I saw a dozen Turkish men sitting in a classroom with stacks of OATs on their desks. The current principal brought a cup of tea and a plate of cookies to me while I worked alone in my classroom. He said that the men were simply darkening in the answers for students who wrote too lightly.
Right—we all know that kids have an instinctive bent for delicacy, which undoubtedly accounted for those faint markings….
And there have been questions, as well, about how accountable these schools are. Reports have surfaced that at least the Turkish teachers have to kickback up to forty percent of their salary to the Gülen movement. Oh, and what about the question of immigration? Is there really such a shortage of American teachers?  And do these “teachers” have any formal training?
That said, it’s also true that, bar having done if for twenty plus years, I’m completely untrained too, and that didn’t stop me from fooling a passel of students and the world’s largest company into thinking I knew what I was doing.
Nor is Gülen, apparently, the most virulent of imams. Because his message was / is that the Muslim world doesn’t need more mosques and madrasas, but rather schools that focus on the sciences and math. And though virtually a recluse, his movement carries such weight that, in Turkey at least, his opponents fear that he may be planning a coup. 
And the schools—are they really connected to Gülen? They—some of them—say no, others say yes. Why the confusion, or the secrecy?
Well, would you want to be a Muslim in America? And here, I have to say that however radicalized I might be as an atheist, I’d welcome an imam like Gülen who—if true—is a moderate and condemns extreme forms of Islam. We need these guys….
And the charter schools? With their reports of not accepting some students, of kicking out students who don’t perform, of shifting kids around? That’s the negative stuff. But what about all those kids you see in videos who are solemnly swearing that school is fun, learning is cool, going to school is a joy?
Don’t know. But this I do know: if I were a parent, I’d certainly check out the charter schools in my area….


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