Claiming Scapegoat Status

So the pope is stepping down, and the cardinals are gathering to name a new leader. One of them is LA's Cardinal Mahoney, who is accused of harboring child-abusing priests and moving them elsewhere (like sending one to Mexico) during the 1980s. Mahoney's being sued now by a 35-year-old man for what he endured. In his blog--yes, the elderly cardinal blogs! (or has staffers who do so under his name)--he claims to be a victim of scapegoating, as he here explains:

One very insightful and powerful Address has sustained me over these past difficult years as all of us in the Church had to face the fact that Catholic clergy sexually abused children and young people.Entitled On Carrying A Scandal Biblically it was first delivered in late 2002 by Father Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., in Canada. The Address was edited into an article, and is readily available on his website. (1)

There is nothing else in print which has so captivated my heart and soul, and served as the basis for countless meditations and reflections. I recommend it to anyone who is searching for a truly counter-cultural approach at dealing with this terrible sinfulness which has overwhelmed all of us in the Church.You will never find the Rolheiser approach even mentioned in any news media, since it is not about condemning others, but about how disciples of Jesus are called to carry and live out a terrible scandal day by day.

He calls our suffering what it really is: painful and public humiliation, which is spiritually a grace-opportunity. I have tried to live out--poorly and inadequately far too often--his two implications of humiliation:

1. the acceptance of being scapegoated, pointing out the necessary connection between humiliation and redemption;

2. this scandal is putting us, the clergy and the church, where we belong--with the excluded ones; Jesus was painted with the same brush as the two thieves crucified with him.

I'd love to follow this out, asking for example (1) how Burke defines scapegoating; (2) when the term was first used (try the OED); (3) using this as a context for interpreting what Mahoney means and how this is/is not congruent with Burke's concept; (4) seeing if others have done likewise. I guess my instinct is that Burke's usage defines a group of people who were targeted for nefarious reasons through nothing they had done other than been born, and that Mahoney's usage, given his own account of his "mistakes" during the time in question, intends to put himself in the same category through Burkean identification--an intention and rhetorical move I find unethical.

(And here is another example I just stumbled on: "For others, arguments about cinematic truth have become political arguments carried out by other means. “Zero Dark Thirty,” for instance, has become the target, perhaps the scapegoat, in an important debate about the morality of American antiterrorism policies, including “enhanced interrogation” during the Bush administration and targeted killings and drone strikes under President Obama."