The Oxford English Dictionary offers several definitions of
culture, at least two of which help us understand the sex abuse
scandals that have burst into flame on the campuses of Penn
State and Syracuse universities and the very same scandal that
is still eating its windswept way across the vast prairie of the
Catholic church. These are different faces of a scandal where
origins and accelerants are exactly the same. They are functions
of the cultures in which the blazes exploded from the same
kindling, waxed stronger as the officials perched atop their
common hierarchical structures, certain that they could keep
them under control, decided not to pull the fire alarm -- what
the heck, the fire chief and the newspaper editor were old
friends of ours, we can count on them to keep this quiet and,
besides, reporting it might increase our insurance rates, and
we've had little fires before and if you don't make a big deal
out of them, they burn themselves out. The OED definition of
such a culture informs us of its c