Ernie, I love you as a brother, though I don't know you that well I appreciate your spirit and thought contributions. That said allow me if you will...
I think that the majority of the 900 or so folks who work with CAM are wondering how in the world this could have happened. I agree with Dan Z that this situation involves a handful of CAM employees. I don't see this as an organization wide problem.
I agree with you, probably as Dan Z and you hypothesize only a handful of the 900 knew. The issue is though, that key members did know. There is hard evidence that key leaders at CAM knew (I'll refrain from mentioning names but the evidence exists in the testimony of the Life Literature board member). And the culture that permitted knowledge of child molestation and then the subsequent endangering of child welfare at a leadership level, is in fact, an institutional problem. I want CAM to be restored. I want to continue to send our students their to volunteer in good faith...but their must be a few substantial shifts, which I'll speak to in a bit. And I say this with all kindness and love, but your position as an employee of CAM of course, and there is nothing wrong with it it just is what it is, perhaps influences your discernment.
In the department where I work, there are very high standards for personal integrity and screening of applicants. The screening process in our department related to how much one yields to temptation in his thought-life and his past addictions, would probably screen out many folks who post on MN.
The problem here wasn't the screening. That's a non-issue. Leaders at CAM knew. The problem was the burying and non-reporting of the issue. And in so doing endangering the welfare of some of the most vulnerable children on earth.
I personally am not anywhere close to dropping my support or involvement because I still have confidence at this point that CAM will put policies and accountability in place that will keep this kind of thing from slipping through the cracks.
I am curious, what would it take to make you consider dropping your support?
And one final point, the online publicity and broadcasting has consumed extra resources and energy from CAM staff. If people were really interested in helping CAM and the victims, they could have shared their findings with those who are part of the solution. I assume they felt that airing their thoughts and findings publicly was part of the solution, but I think it was a big mistake. I don't think they realize how much more difficult they made the situation. And I don't think they realize how much additional help they were to the Kingdom of Darkness. For the record, I'm talking specifically about the publicity. I'm very much in favor of transparency and of exposing the works of darkness to those who need to know.
Light drives out darkness. I have very little confidence that absent public exposure, any substantial shifts would be forthcoming. Because of the exposure, I am hopeful that as a result of the meeting today, we will get some real shifts. (I'll lay out in a bit what I think those should be). Yes...we don't need to know any lurid details. The simple fact that rank child abuse was prevalent and up to 40 children in Haiti were victimized is sufficient. And that CAM leaders knew before hand that JM had issues with molestation and sent him anyway. And that not once, until the last few weeks, were any of the known crimes reported. (I might add that crimes don't have to be known to be reported. The premise is, if there is suspicion , you report, and let the investigators either clear or convict.)
Here are the key points in my mind that need to be addressed:
1) CAM needs to take responsibility as an institution for endangering the welfare of children and allowing the abuse to continue another 7 years. They must publicly acknowledge that some (however many it is) knew of JM's tendencies and did not report him to the authorities. And what's more, that they allowed him to return to Haiti. This will of course position them poorly in resulting litigation, but it is the truth. And when we are sued we are to give extra as Jesus taught. Further we need not put tons of thought into what we will say if we are taken to court. The right thing is the right thing. And that means apology for CAM's negligence.
2) CAM, the board chair ideally, needs to speak to this personally and publicly with a human face. Directly to the CAM constituents and the victims. They cannot afford to hide behind released "written" lawyered up statements. There must be a public apology for their role in allowing a culture and leadership that permitted this to knowingly happen.
3) All people who knew must be immediately dismissed or tender their resignations. Ideally, the people who supervised the people that knew and didn't report, should also offer their resignations. Whether they are accepted perhaps could be a matter of personal context.
4) CAM should publicly apologize for releasing their "lawyered up" statement designed to avoid future litigation that offered misleading information. As soon as I read that I knew it written by an attorney. And low inference evidence reported by the Shankster's confirms that. That statement was blatantly misleading in that it suggested CAM, as an institution, only recently knew about this. Once again there is witness from 3-4 people that confirm this letter was misleading.
5) They should submit to an outside investigation for this event and all their systems. Including how donor money could be used for "sugar daddy" purposes. Its obvious to any impartial observer that, because CAM leaders knew, an internal investigation is not ideal. A third party would bring more objectivity and accountability.
I am optimistic that the meeting today will result in at least some of the above substantive changes. However, absent the publicity, I am doubtful anything much different would have resulted minus a few technical policy changes.