Parham and accountability on clergy sex abuse

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Bruce Gourley]

NOTE: I am posting the following at the request of Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press, in reply to William's post. - Bruce

===============================================

Bob Allen says:

I think Parham is alluding to an old case concerning Michael Leathers, someone who (I believe) now works for him part time.

I covered the story first for ABP, and then used it again this way in ED in 2006: http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=7954

Another concern is job security. In 2002 the Illinois Baptist reported that if things had gone as planned, 35-year-old Leslie Mason would have preached the keynote sermon at that year's annual meeting of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

Instead, the former pastor of Olney Southern Baptist Church faced 10 counts of criminal sexual assault involving two teenage girls who had attended his church.

Mason eventually pleaded guilty to two class-one felonies in exchange for dismissal of the eight remaining counts. The editor of the newspaper, Michael Leathers, was criticized and eventually forced to resign for his decision to report the story.

What Parham doesn’t mention is that one agency head of the same convention wrote a letter asking a judge not to send Mason to prison on company letterhead. The agency? For the full impact you have to see it yourself. http://stopbaptistpredators.org/scandal ... Letter.pdf

Here’s my story about that: http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=12041

Here’s Christa Brown’s comment: http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.co ... urged.html

Bob Allen
Senior Writer
Associated Baptist Press
http://www.abpnews.com
bob@abpnews.com

[William Thornton]

Well, that clears that up. Thanks.

[georgefrink]

makes it clear that Michael Leathers was forced to resign to ensure that reporting like the Mason sex-abuse story “doesn’t happen again.”
That's from the chairman "of a five-member ad hoc committee of the state association's board of directors to study the role of the newspaper."

Defense of the Leathers' forced resignation became dramatically worse, IMHO, when Glen Akins, interim executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, wrote that he believed Leathers would be "happier" in a position "reflective of Leathers' professional journalism style of being hard-hitting and direct, and one that doesn't require the same high degree of spiritual sensitivity."
How does "spiritual sensitivity" move a journalist to fail to report a sexual misconduct scandal? That strikes me as the kind of sensitivity the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI wish the New York Times had displayed rather than .
It means failing to report the truth, even when the truth involves filed criminal charges which ultimately result in conviction.
How pervasive is that sort of "spiritual sensitivity" among Baptist state newspapers now?