Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 12

TILTING
at windmills
By Charles Peters

Fire Mary Barra

tlements involving the sexual abuse
of children. But almost none of the
priests' names have been reported to law
Early last winter, the Justice Department
enforcement-meaning that, unlike othfined Toyota $1.2 billion for failing to diser kinds of rapists, godly rapists don't
close a possible electronic defect that
face prison time. Why should there be
turned out not to exist. Shortly afterno prosecution of crimes by clergy? If a
ward, it became clear that General Mopriest were raped, the church would be
tors had spent years covering up an all-toooutraged if the offender were only asreal defect that, by the Reuters count, killed
signed a period of prayer and penance.
seventy-four people. If $1.2 billion was the
Since 2002, Bernard Law, former head
proper fine for regulatory error, the fine Religious criminals belong in jail
of the Boston archdiocese, has lived in
for GM's grotesque disregard of human
life should be far higher. And there should Recently Pope Francis told the Ital- Rome to avoid answering Massachusetts
be clawback of the roughly $145 million ian newspaper La Repubblica that 8,000 charges regarding obstruction of justice
in bonuses conferred on Richard Wagon- priests-about 2 percent of the Roman for child rapes during his administration.
er, Ed Whitacre, Dan Akerson, and Mary clergy-are pedophiles. The first step in Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, defrocked
Barra, CEOs during the period of the cover- recovery is to admit the problem, so this for sexually abusing children, faces only
a Vatican City tribunal. They and
up. Wagoner got an $8 million
the thousands of child-abusing
severance even though the compriests who hide from the law are
pany lost $65 billion under his
CEOs say their extravagant paydays
doing something both morally
leadership; he also made the bigare justified because the buck stops
wrong and cowardly. The Christgest auto blunder since the Edsel,
like act would be to surrender and
investing billions in the Hummer
with them: then, when something
accept the consequences.
brand fiasco.
goes wrong, they claim they knew
CEOs say their extravagant
paydays are justified because
BP can't stop spills of oil
nothing and had no responsibility.
the buck stops with them: then,
or money
when something goes wrong,
they claim they knew nothing and had is progress. The number ought to shock. BP is being bilked in the distribution of
no responsibility. Yet after running what There are bad apples in every organization, Deepwater Horizon settlement money-
the company's own report called a man- but could it really be that 2 percent of ele- poetic justice for an arrogant company
agement culture of "incompetence and ne- mentary schoolteachers or camp counsel- that killed workers and thumbed its nose
glect," GM's CEOs keep the money they ors grope or rape kids? In the United States, at the environment. It is a double dose of
awarded themselves.
about half a percent of men are registered poetic justice that for all its power and
sex offenders. This suggests clergy are four pounds sterling BP was too dumb to retimes more likely to be sex offenders than alize that Louisiana's Napoleonic-rooted
Cleaner air later
adult men in general.
civil code is notoriously crooked. The comThe Vatican has said the Catholic pany freely agreed to a distribution proceThe White House has unveiled commendable fuel-efficiency standards for Church has paid $2.5 billion in civil set- dure that was just asking the Louisiana bar
12

September/October 2014

automakers-but the rules will not become strict until after Barack Obama
leaves office. Whether they ever actually take effect, only time will tell. For now,
the government-favored GM continues
to build such monstrosities as a fifteenmpg Camaro and a fourteen-mpg Escalade,
both of which emit ten tons of greenhouse
gases annually.

Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

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