Mark Shea on McQueary's reaction

There have been recent articles concerning how Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary (above, left) reacted to the 2002 incident in which a former Penn State coach was allegedly seen abusing a young boy at the university's athletic facilities. It seems that some say he didn't do enough, and yet McQueary is now stating he did more than was previously reported in the news.

Mark Shea over at Catholic and Enjoying It! has weighed in on McQueary and I thought his analysis was interesting....

"But though lots of combox warriors are quite adept at fantasizing about how bravely they would have behaved and how vile Mike McQueary is in comparison to their brave selves, how they would have taken a baseball bat to Sandusky had they caught him in flagrante, the reality is that, if the Milgram experiments are any indication, a huge percentage of people are pretty well programmed to avoid trouble with authority figures rather than open a can of whupass. Sorry, but that’s the stuff we fallen humans are made of, as our first Pope learned when he confidently declared, “Though everyone else deny you, I will never deny you.” Indeed, despite the flattering and heroic picture so many Laptop Ninjas have of themselves, righteously battling evil with flawless martial arts moves and utter rectitude like Buffy and Angel, the real picture of fallen humanity given to us by revelation is that of the apostles in Gethsemane on Holy Thursday: big talk, sleepiness while Jesus sweats blood, a brief show of bluster and bravado against the wrong person (resulting in a severed ear) and then bolting, ass-saving panic such that one of the disciples peeled out of his clothes and ran off naked rather than defend the innocent from evil authority figures. That story is painful to read because that story is a paradigm, not an isolated incident. It has been replayed again and again down the centuries and we chicken shits in comboxes boasting about our courage over Those People Over There know it damn well. That’s why we talk so big.

So I look at McQueary and think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”"

It's important to keep in mind that at least McQueary did something and I fear if backlash is too harsh against him, then other potential whistleblowers would be reluctant to come forward in the future. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I think we could all agree that we should be fully aware that such evil exists in the world and that we might have to some day react to it in an appropriate manner.