I heard that yesterday and thought the same thing. Not knowing and not acting is one thing but knowing and not acting is unforgivable. I wonder how much money the BSA has and how much of that they're trying to protect.

Thank you Elmer for putting this out there. No one should put their child into the harms way of this organization.

i have a lot of questions, I was a Girl Scout leader for many years but I did know a few kids in Boy Scouts. From what I remember, it was the moms who were the den leaders but then the dad would take the boys on the weekend camping and special events.

Was it the dad that all that were being accused or volunteers who did not have a son in Boy Scouts but we’re allowed to be leaders?

In Girl Scouts, it was unheard of to have a leader that wasn’t also a mom. I remember one case of 2 Leaders that had daughters finish the program and they decided they would like the experience of leading without the complications of having their own daughters involved. But this was rare.

There was one case of a dad being a Girl Scout leader. I really was not a fan of this at all but the way Girl Scouts looked at it they were inclusive and if this was the only way girls could have a true and they were all for it. But it really wasn’t ideal because girls need roll models within the troop dynamic.

It's sad that people paint everyone with the same accusing brush. The local scouts in my area have said that they have been independent of BSA for awhile now and the scouts will still be in their troops doing good works and having fun. There are plenty of good men (and women) still mentoring the kids.

Cub scouts usually had moms as the den leaders. Boy Scouts (after about 5th grade, maybe) always had male leaders.

Of course they are not all abusers and the majority are good people. The problem I have is that many of these “good people” stayed quiet when they heard that abuse might be happening. Things were kept quiet or hidden completely. Same goes for the problems of the Catholic Church.

Elmer, thanks for sharing this. I’ve been following along, and while I don’t personally know anyone this happened to, it’s been both shocking and sad to see it unfold, both for the Boy Scouts and for the Catholic Church. And any other organization for that matter where abuse occurs (gymnastics and Penn State come to mind).

I’m with you and others, the hypocrisy is appalling.

The church, BSA, Little League. When we will face there is a HUGE sickness in the world!! I want to know where the parents were?!?! No way the police wouldn't have been called and no way would it have gone unanswered. My son and husband had many many great years involved with scouting. The Viking Council had very strict rules for keeping all boys safe and all leaders safe from false accusations. We were very blessed.

I was super vigilant when my son joined the Weebelos. I had a co-worker who was kind and honest enough to let all of us in the office know the story about her son who was abused by a soccer coach. She told us so that we would be ever vigilant about this with our kids. This man not only was a coach but a long-time family friend and I shudder every time I think of what that monster put those boys through. That story stuck in my mind ever after that. Yes the weekly activities in Webelos were held in homes with den mothers but there were men in the organization and there wasn't any time where my son was left in their charge. He only stayed in the pack for a year or two - he lost interest. But the year before we moved from our last residence the man who moved in next door was a substitute teacher in a middle school. He had a wife who was practically an invalid and a grown son - probably in his late 30's who still lived at home. There were no children there. He soon became a scout leader. But before that I noticed that a lot of the neighborhood boys were at the house coming and going, sometimes doing yard chores but sometimes not. I never liked the guy and really couldn't put my finger on why but this situation just bothered me. Since I knew nothing for sure except for my gut feelings I couldn't say anything. A couple of months after we moved his booking photo came up on the TV local news - he had been caught with child porn on his computer at work - AT THE SCHOOL! I was so upset that I couldn't go around and warn people in the area about him but I had no facts to back it up and could have been sued. Trust your gut.

The issue is Boy Scouts as an organization being completely cavalier, totally careless, about the safety of the boys they had the responsibility for. I used to work for the National Park Service and every year we had Boy Scout Season. Parks that had hikes or canoe trips or other similar Scout Patch earning events had extra patrols to check for the left behinds as the groups went through routinely picking up lost and left kids whose leaders were often eating their dinners in camp or even asleep with no idea they had left kids behind. One park had a canoe trip, the water is glacial melt and rangers would find kids in swamped canoes trying to paddle to shore with troop leaders no where to be found. How now one ever died I don't know. I am not exaggerating. I would not dream of putting a kid in their care. I was not in the least surprised they were as careless with sex abuse.

"THE BOY SCOUTS as if everyone...man, woman and boys right down to the small local level, ever involved were bad people. Punish hard the guilty...but don't make the good ones ashamed that they were members who knew nothing about these awful ones."

To be clear - this topic is about the Boy Scouts organization and its management, not about the local Boy Scout troops. It was the Boy Scouts organization that was hypocritical in publicly barring men with other than heterosexual preferences while doing nothing about reported instances of abuse. To be clear, sexual orientation and pedophilia are completely different and unrelated. They made an issue out of something that represented little danger to the kids and repeatedly covered up thousands of instances of abuse that WERE a danger to the kids.

However, don't overlook the fact that many people who thought their kids were in "safe", locally organized troops would have been shocked to learn that there were abusers in those local organizations. BUT THE TRUTH WAS COVERED UP.

arcy, you thought you were "very blessed"? How so, because it was other people's children who were being molested and not your's?

Elmer Fudd, you mischaracterized arcy's comment. Arcy's post said, "The Viking Council had very strict rules for keeping all boys safe and all leaders safe from false accusations. We were very blessed."

C Marlin, it took me just a few minutes of searching to find that the Viking Council was a forerunner of what's now called the North Star Council. According to a newspaper article linked below from the Minneapolis Star Tribune,

"The files include 34 known pedophiles in Minnesota from 1960 to 1991; the Boy Scouts also have files on 49 Minnesota Scout leaders from 1992 to 2004 against whom abuse allegations have been made."

North Star Council sued for abuse incidents

So, other people's children in her area were molested. I'm glad for her (and him, of course) that her son was safe but that changes nothing about the cover-ups and hypocritical policies of Boy Scouts and its member councils.

All organizations have rules for "keeping boys safe". The question about the Boy Scounts is whether the rules were consistently enforced (they weren't) and whether violations were reported to the police (that also didn't happen). She also made a comment about keeping "leaders safe from false accusations". That puzzles me but I decided to let that one go.

BSA and Catholic Church management are to blame for mishandling of abuse, sadly, over years. It’s horrific, shameful. It could still even be going on. That does not negate the experience of million of boys who had outstanding, moral leaders and life changing opportunities to learn and grow.

You know what she means by keeping leaders safe from false accusations so don’t be disingenuous. Thank you for letting it go. We’ve heard enough.

Not Boy Scouts but an incident in our little town. A church which was a non-affiliated independent Christian church (so they had no hierarchy to do anything) had a youth leader who abused boys. The minister and assistant minister when it was brought to their attention, let him resign and move away. No one knew anything about the abuse. Years later, one of the abused boys was at college and walked into a classroom the first day and there stood his abuser who was going to teach the class. He was now 18 and he told the college and it all came out about the guy being an abuser. He filed a complaint with our police. Our town had him arrested, the minister and assistant minister resigned because they didn't tell the leaders of the church nor the police about the pedafile and it caused a loss of membership in the church. The guy eventually got what was his due. But it was an independent church and the minister (who was much beloved -- so much so that people almost thought of him as god and I guess perhaps he thought so himself) was the one sweeping it under the rug. So you don't need a big organization to ignore the problem!

Martha's input reminded me of another thing with my co-worker's story. Come to find out, this family "friend" and soccer coach had abused boys in another state and had moved away and set up in her area. He groomed their friendship for a long time before he started abusing not only her son but others. It was always on game away trips where he was doing this - away from home and protection of parents. So the fact that these people are able to get away with this with no punishment and then move on to prey in another place is so sickening.

Wow....I must live under a rock. I haven't heard ALL about it. You'd think THIS would be a topic that would take precedence over news, ie: What was said on The View....but I saw the story on that.

"So the fact that these people are able to get away with this with no punishment and then move on to prey in another place is so sickening"

Agreed! Just wow!

"You know what she means by keeping leaders safe from false accusations"

Honestly, I don't. If it's so clear to you, help me understand. It seemed like an odd sentiment to express.

I think arcy is expressing her disgust with this situation - people entrusted with other people's children and then taking advantage of their positions of trust, and feeling blessed that her family's interaction and affiliation with the Viking Council, and how the Viking Council had rules in place to prevent the kind of abuse that was going on in other Boy Scout organizations. It doesn't sound like, to me, that she didn't care that abuse was going on elsewhere, and that because her kid wasn't being abused it was all good. Just being glad that the Viking Council took precautions to ensure the kids involved with them were safe.

That's my 2 cent interpretation for whatever it's worth. :>)

Of course one would be disgusted with the situation and the truth that where boys and men congregate this keeps happening. It is very easy to point fingers at institutions that do not have eyes at every gathering. The place to look is the culture that created the pressure to look the other way, shame the victim or just ignore the signs. These boys also had parents and good Patrol leaders. I want to know why the healthy adults did not come to the aid of these boys, and I want to know the impossible; how to keep children safe from predators. Bankrupting an institution is not going to do that. The experience of Scouting in my family, going back several generations was positive, for that we were blessed, it's that simple.

"The place to look is the culture that created the pressure to look the other way, shame the victim or just ignore the signs"

What do you mean by "culture"? The Catholic Church? I can't think of anything more traditionally American and wholesome than the Boy Scouts (as a concept/tradition, not referring to the abuse or cover-up).

Usually the kind of animal that commits these kind of attacks is very sly and usually gains the trust of the child and work on that relationship for a long time. They use psychology and the threat of shame to keep the assaults a secret. Parents and leaders need to start as early as it's feasible to explain to their children that no matter what happens to them like this they will never be made to take the blame for it happening and should never hesitate to report it ASAP, the sooner it's reported the sooner something might be done to stop it from happening not only to them but to their family or friends.

Over 7000 perpetrators were named in secret perversion files that covered 20 years. 7000 named. This was back in 2012. The Boy Scouts of America big wigs knew this was happening.

Parents don’t know abuse is happening because part of the abuse is threatening the victim if they talk.

From what I am reading the parents alerted the Boy Scouts just like parents did in the Catholic Church and instead of turning this over to the police they covered it up. So your saintly organization protected the abusers and shut up the parents. It is what the Catholic Church did and too many other organizations since they aren't the only religious organization who did this or even organizations. Why does the law require school teachers to report these things? Because people will cover it up. It has to have something to do with people's discomfort in dealing with sex let alone sexual abuse. It is the kids who suffer for our inability to deal with this sort of criminal behavior.

I remember the USA gymnastics cover-up recently too. Hundreds of young gymnasts were sexually molested by the team doctor during exams.

So sad to hear this. We have always been blessed with a wonderful Boy Scout organization here in our small town.

The unfortunate truth is that there are, and always have been people who prey upon children.

These demented people are drawn like magnets to institutions where they have access to children. It doesn’t matter if it’s through schools, sports programs, religious organizations.

Don’t think yours is immune.

As a society, we teach our children to respect their elders. We show our children how much we love and respect these institutions. We make it easy for predators if we put our heads in the sand on this.

The Catholic Church is a perfect example. It is not alone though. Keep your eyes open.