Saints fight to avoid disclosing emails in Catholic abuse crisis (MERGED)

Doug B said
The article's lead paragraph is erroneous. It's a small, subtle error ... but it puts the Saints in an artificially bad light.

This part of the lead paragraph:

"... hundreds of emails that allegedly show team executives doing public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese ... "

should read

" ... hundreds of emails that allegedly show team executives advising on how best to do public relations damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese ... "

And then, this:

The Saints' PR staff was not managing the public relations of "criminals engaged in pedophilia"! They were offering advice to industry peers who themselves were absolutely not pedophiles.

When Penn State hired PR staff to help build back a reputation after Jerry Sandusky's abuses ... were those PR professionals engaged in covering up for Sandusky? Minimizing his crimes? Or were they working in service for the other thousands of Penn State faculty, staff, and students?

Apples to oranges though.

The PR firm that came in after the Penn State scandal was not working with the same administration that actually oversaw the abuses. All of those people were fired and the PR firm came in and worked with the people who replaced Sandusky and Paterno.

Further, Penn State acted with integrity in uncovering, rooting out,and fixing the problem. There was no attempt to hide or massage messaging.

But rather than fight NCAA sanctions as many alumni demanded, the Penn State board switched. The board examined the facts, and saw the failures of oversight and inadequate protection of children. They faced a classic recovery dilemma, and courageously made the right choice…

One of the first, and most important, steps on this path was the appointment Rodney Erickson, a 30-year veteran of the university and its former provost, to step in to fill the leadership void of the ousted predecessor Graham Spanier. In short, they hired a Jimmy Stewart-like pillar of integrity and responsibility…

…The board wisely drew on its reservoir of internal talent as well, asking board member and Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier to chair Penn State's special investigation committee. Frazier is not only a revered CEO but also was the general counsel of Merck who was well battle-tested in public controversy…

In the Saints example, they allegedly helped the same leadership that was in charge during the sexual abuse. And it does not appear that the Church is doing anything similar to what Penn State did to rectify what happened. It appears they're trying to carry on business as usual while taking as little PR damage as possible.

This is serious. I'm withholding judgement for now, until more detail comes out.