Recent passionate outcry against the Boston Archdiocese is both appropriate and desirable. Hundreds of victimized worshippers, abused over several decades, will never be the same. Also victimized are all members of the Catholic community, who, rightfully, now question the integrity of their religious leaders and the very institution through which they come to participate in their religious experience.

The shakeup within the Archdiocese that we have seen will probably continue for a long time. Lawsuits, resignations, as well as private and public investigations will take place before the Catholic Church can consider this episode completed.

Inasmuch as members of the Catholic community should now feel dispassionate towards their church – when not outraged – Jews should now look to Catholics with a feeling of envy. Already, Cardinal Bernard Law has apologized for his poor – perhaps criminally-poor – mismanagement of abusive subordinates; due to grand public outcry, including a New York Times editorial, his resignation is expected to soon follow. But the Jewish community has its own scandal, and there seems little reason to hope for a similar apology from – or cleansing of – our institutions.

The Jewish response to the Baruch Lanner scandal, in which he was accused of chronic sexual abuse over decades of work as a youth leader for NCSY, has been habitually ineffective. That Lanner somehow received a bais din’s approval in 1990, after initial accusations came to Jewish leaders’ attention, is something that ten extra years of abused children will always have to deal with. That defense and coddling of Lanner continues nearly two years after his exposure by The Jewish Week is confounding and disastrous. This stance lends credence to the practice of concealing abuses that continues in our community.

Whereas the Catholic community has seen a flurry of instantaneous apologies, resignations and reorganizations following their scandal’s media exposure two weeks ago, the incomprehensible response to our scandal was underscored by another Jewish Week article. As Yeshiva students participated in the highly-subsidized solidarity mission, Torah Shield II, they were required to commit to the fullest utilization of their time, not spending it however they chose, but in ways that the trip’s organizers considered most effective. Apparently, it has been reported, for those not bound to the same commitment as the students, maximum devotion to the Mission is manifested in seeking creature comforts for an exposed, alleged pedophile, while ignoring the inadequacies that allowed him to remain in his position. It is worth noting that while we, as a journalistic courtesy, continue to refer to Lanner’s “alleged” crimes, his defenders seem to assume his guilt. More focus is presently being devoted to keeping Lanner out of jail than was in keeping him away from children.

Obviously, Jewish leaders have not yet come to terms with the magnitude, irresponsibility, and immorality associated with, first, not effectively removing a sexual predator from a youth leadership position and, second, continuing to defend the individual and the institution once the situation is known. For the Catholic Church, apparently, the only exposure that could bring its members to an admission of wrongdoing was exposure in major-media institutions like The New York Times.

For the Jewish community, we have yet to discover the appropriate level of public embarrassment that will finally force community leaders to accept their culpability. Exposure on the front page of The Jewish Week, criminal and civil lawsuits, and an internal investigation at the Orthodox Union seem to have been incapable of producing the desired effect. We cannot think of many more potential avenues for catalyzing a reform that will finally protect Jewish children from future abusers.

What seems to have worked in the Catholic Church may be our only remaining option. In the absence of instituational reform and acceptance of responsibility, we issue the following request to the New York Times: Please, investigate these alleged crimes and obvious abuses of responsibility, and force us to fix them. Please, for the sake of Jewish children here, in Israel, and wherever our sexual predators may be transferred, help us.