Was Lord Acton talking about Joe Paterno when he said this?

[jimmudcatgrant]

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."  I would have put this in the sports section, but I wanted to make a parallel between the power that some Coaches wield, and the power that some religious leaders wield, and how they use that power to coverup abuse.  I am talking about different denominations and won't mention any by name as we all know the problem reaches across Christianity.  The hierarchy, sports or religious, rallies around the leader and the organization.  They tell themselves that protecting their reputation is the important thing, and the reason they are successful is that they do have absolute power. If anyone bucks them, they will be smeared, fired, etc.  The innocent victims are thrown under the bus, and the coverup begins.  We can blame the leaders, and we can blame ourselves, for giving any men that much power.  But the most blame has to go to the individuals in charge.  It makes me sick that victims are not put first in these situations, and other abuses happen because of these coverups. 

Joe Paterno helped a lot of people, he did a lot of good for Penn State, but he dropped the ball in his biggest game, according to the former FBI man's report, and he covered up horrible abuse, and left the door open for many more to come.  That is despicable, imo.  The same thing has gone on in religious organizations around the world, and that is even more despicable, as they, above anyone, should know better.

 

[ALAYMAN]

I'm far from a Penn State apologist, but defended Joe Pa for the longest time, under the auspices that he was naive and did what was procedurally right, but if this latest claim is accurate,  that he advocated protecting the institution in spite of knowing what Sandusky was doing or had done, he failed the biggest test of all in my book.