Clergy Sexual Abuse Research Articles

Mediating God's Grace within the Context of Trauma: Implications for a Christian Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse

In a previous article, I drew on insights from trauma studies to argue that interpersonal relationships have the power both to debilitate and foster our ability to realize our human freedom and relate with trust and love to ourselves, others, and God. Insight into the power of interpersonal relationships carries profound ethical implications, reconfiguring our understanding of the mediation of divine grace and transforming our perceptions of what it means to love our neighbor. This article seeks to apply these insights as it evaluates the Catholic Church's efforts to support its own clergy sexual abuse survivors. At stake is whether both clergy and laity can fulfill the Church's ecclesial mission to mediate grace to all of Christ's brothers and sisters. This article explores the steps the Church needs to take to restore trust and safety, pursue justice, and facilitate authentic healing and reconciliation among the Church and its survivors.

The spiritual dimensions of psychopolitical validity: the case of the clergy sexual abuse crisis

AbstractIn this article, the authors explore the spiritual dimensions of psychopolitical validity and use it as a lens to analyze clergy sexual abuse. The psychopolitical approach suggests a comprehensive human science methodology that invites exploration of phenomena such as spirituality and religious experience and the use of methods from a wide variety of disciplines, including philosophy and theology. They report an analysis showing the clergy sexual abuse crisis to be a system with interrelated personal, relational, and social/collective aspects, many of which are in the spiritual domain. The analysis shows how the abuse of power permeates the clergy sexual abuse system and suggests that two interrelated levels of reform must occur: (a) the church must transformatively change its structures to liberate its members to develop spiritually as mature persons—a political task, and (b) consciousness raising is required to help empower people to assume their rightful role in church decision making—a psychological task. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Some Reflections on Labor and Employment Ramifications of Diocesan Bankruptcy Filings

Sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy is perhaps the greatest scandal in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. On September 7, 2007, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, California, announced a $198 million settlement with 144 claimants. In mid July, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced a $660 million settlement with 508 claimants, following a November, 2006 settlement with 86 claimants for an additional $114 million. Five prominent Catholic dioceses in the United States have filed for bankruptcy since 2004, facing (and, perhaps, seeking to avoid) enormous liability for tort damages caused by clergy sexual abuse. There is a burgeoning law review literature examining many different dimensions of the situation. However, no article, thus far, has focused on the labor and employment ramifications of the crisis. In this article, I study the five diocesan bankruptcy cases. I also discuss the status of labor and employment relations with the Church as employer, in light of secular case law, canon law, and Church teaching. I then present an overview of labor and employment relations consequences of diocesan bankruptcy, including, paradoxically, the possible resurgence of unionization and collective bargaining by, inter alia, school teachers in primary and secondary Catholic schools.

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Mourning of American Catholic Innocence

The passionate response of many American Catholics to the clergy sex abuse crisis is an expression not only of legitimate anger over the sexual abuse of children and young people by Roman Catholic priests but also of resistance to mourning the significant losses post-immigrant American Catholics sustained in the last third of the twentieth century.

Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse: Origins, Maintenance, and Victims of Perverted Power

Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse: Origins, Maintenance, and Victims of Perverted Power

Merton’s “True Self”: A Resource for Survivors of Sexual Abuse by Priests

The toxic impact of clergy sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence can be complex and enduring. For some, a particularly painful consequence is noteworthy change in one’s personal identity or sense of self. Survivors frequently experience unrelenting grief over the loss of the “self” that was experienced as “real” prior to the onset of abuse. Memories of days and times when this self was “alive” are often accompanied by strong feelings of affection and joy. Despair over the loss of this identity contrasts sharply with the indifference or hostility felt for the self with which they have been burdened as a consequence of sexual abuse by clergy in childhood. Many struggle with the unbearable conviction that they are fated to live “in the skin” of an identity that is not an authentic expression of the person they were meant to be. This article suggests that the writings of Thomas Merton (1915–1968) may offer a hopeful resource for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and for those working in support of survivors’ recovery. Merton has been described as “the most influential Catholic author of the twentieth century” http://www.merton.org). His writings touch the “deeper woundedness of spirit and psyche” (Kilcourse, Cross Curr, 49:87–96, 1999, p. 90) and his elegant examination of the true self lies “at the center of his teaching on the Christian life” (Conn, Pastor Psychol, 46:323–332, 1998, p. 327). For Merton, the true self is indestructible and, because it is “rooted in God” (Merton, The inner experience: Notes on contemplation, Harper Collins, New York, 2003, p. 2), always open to discovery, growth, and transformation. This framework may be especially useful for individuals whose personal identity, as a consequence of sexual abuse in childhood by clergy, is experienced as forever poisoned and beyond redemption.

RELIGIOUS DISILLUSIONMENT AND THE CROSS: AN AUGUSTINIAN REFLECTION

This essay applies recent scholarly insights on disillusionment as a cultural and psychological phenomenon to the problem of religious disillusionment as experienced by US Catholics in the wake of scandals of clergy sexual abuse. First, it sets forth disillusionment as a category for exploring the theological issue of sinfulness in the church. Second, it considers examples of how Vatican documents and acts of reconciliation in the last decade have been careful to draw distinctions between the faults of individual Christians and the holiness of the Church itself. Third, it presents Augustine as one for whom significant disillusionment, even with the Church, became an avenue for embracing the cross in the broadest ecclesiological context.

When Wolves Wear Shepherds' Clothing

This article examines the problem of clergy sexual abuse with adult women. Victims and their families often seek help from Christian professionals outside the church, rendering Christian social workers and other Christian mental health professionals likely service providers in a major crisis looming before congregations and religious organizations. This article reviews resources for helping women, their families, and congregations survive the abuse of power and the betrayal of sacred trust embodied in clergy sexual abuse.

Clericalism: Enabler of Clergy Sexual Abuse

Sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and religious has become the greatest challenge facing Catholicism since the Reformation. Violations of clerical celibacy have occurred throughout history. The institutional church remains defensive while scholars in the behavioral and social sciences probe deeply into the nature of institutional Catholicism, searching for meaningful explanations for the dysfunctional sexual behavior. Clericalism which has traditionally led to deep-seated societal attitudes about the role of the clergy in religious and secular society, explains in part why widespread abuse has apparently been allowed. Clericalism has a profound emotional and psychological influence on victims, church leadership, and secular society. It has enabled the psychological duress experienced by victims which explains why many have remained silent for years. It has also inspired societal denial which has impeded many from accepting clergy sexual abuse as a serious and even horrific crime.

How Sex Abuse Crisis Awakens Us to Take Lay Responsibility–Slaughter of Innocence

ABSTRACT This article is an eloquent response to the Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis from a lay Catholic woman. In it Estés outlines what a real apology would look like.

A "final disposition. .. one way or another": The Real End of the First Curran Affair

In 2003, as United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opened its June meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, clergy sexual abuse scandal was obviously at top of list of continuing concerns. The President of Conference, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, musing, perhaps lamenting, his leadership role at such a uniquely difficult time, told a Washington Post reporter that he wished his mentor, late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, late John Cardinal Dearden were around to help guide church.1 Gregory might as easily have added one more name to his wish list: Alexander Zaleski, Bishop of Lansing from 1965 to 1975, confidant of Dearden and admirer of Bernardin. For four crucial years (1966-1970), he was also first chairman of singularly important Bishops' Committee on Doctrine (COD), one of busiest and most essential of some two dozen standing committees for what was then National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). As chairman, Zaleski was an insightful and highly respected leader of American hierarchy. He was also an effective conciliator between bishops' conference and American Catholic Theological Society. Together with bishops like Dearden and Bernardin, he was a moderate and cautiously optimistic proponent of aggiornamento (renewal or updating) and principles of collegiality and subsidiarity endorsed by Vatican Council II (1962-1965). In cases of internal dissent from church doctrine, he proved a staunch supporter of due process during heady and critical half-decade that followed Council. Zaleski was a highly competent, fair-minded, and collegial chair of an extremely active committee that confronted and worked through a myriad of often daunting internal controversies and crises that shook American church in late 1960's.2 Among those controversies, several reflected era's preoccupation with limits of authority and dissent. Most significant were challenges to nature and scope of Magisterium, Church's teaching authority on matters of faith and morals. Two episodes, in particular, had lasting consequences for study of theology and for Catholic higher education. In both instances key protagonist was Father Charles E. Curran, a young moral theologian at The Catholic University of America. He is best remembered for lead role he played in second controversy that began at a press conference in late July, 1968. There, on behalf of eighty-seven theologians, he read a statement of dissent from Pope Paul VTs encyclical, Humanae Vitae (On Proper Regulation of Propagation of Offspring), in which pontiff reaffirmed Church's proscription of artificial contraception. Within weeks, more than six hundred individuals qualified in sacred sciences had personally endorsed dissent. Curran's leadership role in asserting that a Catholic theologian had a right to disagree with Church's non-infallible teachings helped lay groundwork for decades of controversy over moral authority of Magisterium.3 Eighteen years later, during summer of 1986, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of Vatican's Congregation for Doctrine of Faith (CDF), sent Curran a letter that would end his career at Catholic University of America. After at least seven years of investigating his teaching and writing, and after failing to get Curran to agree to change his stance on contraception and other issues related to sexual morality, CDF declared that he was longer . . . suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology. Ratzinger mailed a similarly worded directive to Chancellor of university and Archbishop of Washington, James Hickey. Hickey wasted no time initiating the withdrawal of [his] . . . ecclesiastical license, but it was not until winter of 1987 that he was able to suspend Curran.4 A year later, in spring of 1988, Board of Trustees formally withdrew Curran's canonical mission. …

Why Devise? Why Now? Why Breathe?

Why Devise?Why Now? Why Breathe? Liebe Wetzel (bio) Why Devise? This question of "why devise theatre?" is as foreign to me as "why breathe?". Why not? How could I stop? I understand the meaning of "devising" as this odd path of generating ensemble-based, found-object theatre that is entirely visual and not rendered in the traditional manner, with playwright and script. Before I digress into why, I will explain briefly what we do. Lunatique Fantastique is a cutting-edge theatre company that uses the relatively benign form of puppetry to explore controversial subjects, such as clergy sexual abuse, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, forced relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII, and prejudice against those with physical challenges. The company uses ordinary objects to portray extraordinary events. A dinner napkin deftly manipulated becomes a girl whose pastor steals her innocence and ties her head in a knot to ensure silence. A brace attaches itself to a pair of red children's tennis shoes to show the disfigurement of polio. Two identical children made of toilet paper rolls use their bodies to build a wall dividing their territory while sheets of toilet paper rain down like tear drops. We rarely use language, but depend on the strength of these visceral images to tell the story. Why Devise? Joy. For me, the joys of creating theatre come from being in a room with six of the most intensely creative people on the planet at a table littered with evocative objects. Six pairs of hands, six brains, and the stars of the Lunatique Fantastique world, the objects that inspire the stories we tell. If the piece is one of our adult pieces, then there is an additional research phase in which the manipulators will interview people who have experience pertinent to the subject matter, whether it be breast cancer, aging, or polio. This takes the manipulators outside their circle of friends into the broader community, fostering a sense of global and local awareness. They then bring their reflections on the subject to the table. We begin with a theme, and we play with the objects, exploring how they move and the gestures that are inherent in them. As the manipulators then each lobby their ideas for moving the story forward, chaos ensues. We try every idea; usually one idea leads to another, which leads to another, which finally leads to something quite brilliant that now is owned by everyone. This delicious anonymity in the process is reflected in performance as well. Since the manipulators are hooded and clad entirely in black, the audience [End Page 127] does not know who is animating what, be it head, arm, or feet. The characters must move as a unit and/or the image the actors create must communicate meaning. This process becomes about the story and the objects, not about ego or script. The process is usually accompanied by much laughter. Unlike actors, the objects do not take themselves seriously and have no attachment to whether or not they are mentioned in reviews, in press releases, or on national TV. By its very nature, ensemble theatre attracts actors who are humble and hunger to create something larger than themselves. By using inert objects we force the animators to create theatre that is about action. Objects don't think very well, they are not great psychological actors. A shoe that is thinking on stage looks like, well, a shoe. Objects are beings of action. A shoe in movement can be a child with polio, a butterfly, or a symbol of a girl's transition to adulthood. At last night's rehearsal I realized that we are opening in London with . . . leeks. How serious can that be? So for me the joy is tremendous, and that is why I devise theatre. Why Devise Now? Why not now? Yes, the world is a mess, and one could argue that there is an immediate need in the world for "devised" theatre, but when has that not been true? The burning question for me is not "Why now?," but "Why not now?". The world hungers for original, immediate, emerging work that is fresh and vibrant. And to paraphrase the sculptor Henry...

God, Sex and Power

After twenty years of reform, most church leaders can give an ethical analysis about why clergy sexual abuse is bad. Yet when many churches respond to complaints, committees are frequently inept in holding clergy abusers accountable, and clergy leaders are still likely to abuse their power over others. This article focuses on understanding clergy sexual abuse as a tangle of pathologies of theology, power and sexuality.

Kirche und Katholizismus seit 1945. Band 4: Die britischen Inseln und Nordamerika (review)

Reviewed by: Kirche und Katholizimus seit 1945. Band 4: Die britischen Inseln und Nordamerika John Jay Hughes Kirche und Katholizimus seit 1945. Band 4: Die britischen Inseln und Nordamerika. Edited by Erwin Gatz. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 2002. Pp. 150. €22.80.) In four chapters of unequal length this modest but well produced book informs German-speaking readers about the Church and Catholicism since 1945 in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. The presentations, well translated from English (save for a glitch regarding the length of Father Robert Drinan's United States congressional terms), are uniformly clear and well written. They are introduced, as one expects in a scholarly German work, by extensive bibliographies, and supported by ample footnotes. The Irish Jesuit Oliver P. Rafferty describes the situation of Catholics in Great Britain. No longer a small despised minority, British Catholics today, thanks in good part to the leadership of the late Cardinal Hume, are "more alive, less alien, and more integrated into society than at any previous time in history." Despite a steep decline in religious practice, the number of Catholics who still practice their faith is far higher than that of all other Christians combined. Though this would qualify them to exert their influence on various levels, "English Catholics remain reluctant, because of their history, to assume a leading role in society." Rafferty's chapter on Ireland deals separately with the Church in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. Despite clergy sexual abuse scandals, the materialism engendered by unprecedented economic prosperity, and widespread rejection of the Church's teaching about sexual morality, "the Irish remain a deeply religious people.... Sixty-three percent of Irish Catholics are still at Mass on Sunday, a higher percentage than even in Poland." Jean-Claude Petit writes about the Church in Quebec. All-powerful as late as the 1960's, the Church's only remaining trace of its former power and glory is the large number of imposing church buildings and other institutions with their ugly silver-painted roofs. Petit cites evidence, however, that Quebec Catholics are starting to develop "a new self-understanding, and fresh credibility." Roberto Perrin portrays the Church in English-speaking Canada. Once a small minority alienated from the overwhelming Protestant culture, Canada's Catholics are now a multi-cultural community and the largest religious body in the country. Led by bishops far more independent of Rome than their counterparts in the United States and characterized by strong concern for social justice, Canadian Catholics today, Perrin writes, are "like Canadian society as a whole, in a time of transition." The longest chapter, almost half the volume, is that on the United States. It is written by the American Jesuit Gerald P. Fogarty (whose name is several times misspelled). Fogarty is uniquely qualified for his task and executes it well. He brings alive the exciting days of the Council. Though the pre-Vatican II American bishops, "more organizers and doers than thinkers and theologians," were ill-prepared for the Council, "they played a leading role in the areas of ecumenism, religious freedom, and relations with non-Christians" [i.e., Jews]. Fogarty introduces European readers to Cardinal Spellman, neither thinker nor theologian, but a stout defender of a national church which could boast, as [End Page 126] late as 1962, that seventy-five percent of its members attended Sunday Mass. Fogarty cites the November, 1963, Council intervention of Auxiliary Bishop Stephen Leven of San Antonio, Texas, refuting the charge that American support for ecumenism reflected weakness in Catholic commitment: "It is not our Catholics who stay away from Sunday Mass, do not receive the sacraments, and vote Communist. Our Catholics are good Catholics, loyal to us bishops and to the Holy Father. We have not lost the working classes. They are the foundation and principal support of our church." Fogarty's laconic comment: "That was an unmistakable allusion to conditions in Italy." That such blunt speech is inconceivable today is a measure of how completely the American hierarchy has been transformed in the present pontificate. Fogarty concludes with a full description of postconciliar developments and the situation of American Catholics in 1999. German-speaking readers will find in these pages...

The Shadow of Love: Power and the Clergy Sexual-Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church

The Shadow of Love: Power and the Clergy Sexual-Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church

The clergy sexual abuse crisis: reform and renewal in the Catholic community

The clergy sexual abuse crisis: reform and renewal in the Catholic community

Clergy Sexual Abuse: Theological and Gender Perspectives

ABSTRACT This article developed from a session sponsored by the Men's Studies Group in Religion at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion held in Atlanta, GA, in November 2003. It offers a theological, ethical and gender analysis of the clergy sexual abuse crisis now faced by the Roman Catholic Church.

An Historical Viewpoint of Sexual Abuse Perpetrated by Clergy and Religious

ABSTRACT This paper has been adapted from the literature review of the author's PhD phenomenological study entitled “Idiosyncratic Trauma Characteristics Experienced by Survivors of Sexual Abuse by Clergy or Religious.” It provides an historical background into the issue of clergy sexual abuse, dispelling any myths of this purely being a 20th century occurrence. It critically explores some of the ways in which church hierarchies have addressed this issue and considers church's potential for re-traumatization for survivors of such abuse.

A Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse: An African American Perspective

SUMMARY This article will reflect on the effects of priest sex abuse on the African American Community.

A Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse: A Latina Perspective

SUMMARY This essay considers the problem of sexual abuse by clergy from a Latina perspective.