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The unspeakable sex crimes against defenseless, innocent children by Penn State football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was an abomination. Sandusky was convicted in June on 45 counts of raping, molesting and abusing children, including on the Penn State campus. But also abominable was the cover-up of the ghastly crimes by coach Joe Paterno and other senior Penn State officials. The investigation by former FBI Director Louie Freeh revealed that Paterno was a serial liar — the man knew the truth about Sandusky but repeatedly lied about it, called Sandusky a “good guy,” and did nothing to stop the man from raping and molesting boys and getting him put behind bars.
By attempting to turn a blind eye and keeping silent about the travesties that were going on rather than turning Sandusky into the police immediately, the Penn State leadership essentially aided and abetted those crimes. How this implosion of morality and ethics and sheer decency could have happened in the first place is still something that makes me shudder.
>> Read full PDF version of the Freeh Report
What was done cannot be undone. But those reponsible can and should be brought to justice. Sandusky is in prison. Paterno has passed away. And now college football is dealing with Penn State. “The NCAA fined the school $60 million, imposed a four-year postseason ban on Penn State football, significantly reduced the number of scholarship players the team can field over the next four years, placed the program on probation for five years and enabled any current or incoming player to transfer and play immediately without restriction,” reports the Washington Post. “But perhaps the most significant individual sanction in the context of college football history is that all of Penn State’s wins from 1998 to 2011 have been vacated, which means that Paterno, who oversaw the Nittany Lions’ football program for nearly 46 years, no longer is the all-time winningest coach in college football’s Division I. That distinction now returns to the late Eddie Robinson, who recorded 408 career wins in 45 years as the head coach of Grambling State — a number surpassed by Paterno on Oct. 29, his last game as Penn State coach before he was forced to step down….The $60 million fine dwarfs any levied by the NCAA in the past; the four-year bowl ban will cost the school tens of millions of dollars; and the reduction to 15 from 25 annual new scholarships, while not unprecedented in scale, will significantly handicap recruitment efforts, especially given the other negative fallout from the Sandusky scandal.” Sports Illustrated provides more details of the record sanctions here.
We need to pray that the Lord heals the children who were abused of this horrible trauma and enables them to lead healthy, productive, godly lives. We also need to pray for their families to find the love and healing and comfort that only Jesus Christ can provide. What’s more, we need to ask the Lord to have mercy on other children who are being sexually abused all across America, and ask the Lord to expose this scourge of abuse and bring it to an immediate end, and bring all of these abusers to justice. The NCAA and the Big Ten conference have done the right thing to send a strong message throughout the college sports community. But this scandal is just the tip of a very ugly iceberg. This scourge of child abuse and molestation — by some in the Catholic Church, by some at Penn State, and by many others across the country — is yet another reason America is in grave danger of implosion. Lord, please have mercy on us. Please cleanse us of this horror show. Please bring a Third Great Awakening and bring millions upon millions of Americans to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ before it’s too late.
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