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I blog @ FRIENDLY FIRE read my LATEST COLUMN FRIENDS' BLOGS CATHOLIC LINKS  mater dei, ora pro nobis contact: @ weinkopf.com (C) 2001, - 2007. All rights are reserved. 
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Thursday, April 04, 2002
THE BROADER SCANDAL The Economist reports a fact largely ignored by much of the press: Child sexual-abuse is a problem that extends well beyond the Catholic Church. Moreover, the Church is hardly the only institution to "pass the trash" -- that is, shift offenders from place to place rather than punish them. According to the magazine, "15% of pupils are sexually abused by a teacher or staff member between kindergarten and high-school graduation," and "up to 5% of teachers sexually abuse or harass students." Worse yet, a "1995 study of 225 cases in which pupils were sexually abused by teachers or other staff members found that in only 1 percent of the cases did the school-district superintendent attempt to revoke the culprit's teaching licence." None of this, of course, excuses the Church's violators, but it does confirm that sin is not unique to the celibate -- it contaminates all people and all of society. This widening scandal only makes all the more clear the need for Christ's redemption, and the graces available through His Church. Wednesday, April 03, 2002
PROFILING UPDATE This week's FrontPage column, Shifting Gears on Racial Profiling, is a follow-up to last week's FrontPage column, PC Makes Study of Racial Profiling DOA. Tuesday, April 02, 2002
PICTURE OF THE DAY 
President George W. Bush with Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick, owner and coach, respectively, of the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots. (Note the Lombardi Trophy in the bottom-left corner.) America's Team was honored today with a Rose Garden ceremony. Quote of the day belongs to Coach Belichick: "We, as Patriots family, feel in a way, in a very humble way, that we represent in a very small way what the President's inspirational leadership over the last year has meant to our country, because we're a team of underdogs, we're red, white and blue, we put team first, but most of all, in the end, we were winners." To think, if things had gone just slightly differently, it could have been President Gore welcoming the world champion St. Louis Rams. Alas, this is a much prettier picture, indeed. (Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe.) MIDDLE EAST MELTDOWN Two excellent pieces on the crisis in Israel in today's OpinionJournal.com: Victor Davis Hanson's History Isn't on the Palestinians' Side and The Media's Giant Error by Thomas J. Bray. Monday, April 01, 2002
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