Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture

by Keenan, Marie

• ISBN13: 9780199895670
• ISBN10: 0199895678
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780199328994
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-10-21
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

A meticulously researched inside look at child sexual abuse by clergy, this exhaustive, hard-hitting analysis weaves together interviews with abusive priests and church historical and administrative details to propose a new way of thinking about clerical sexual offenders. Linking the personal and the institutional, researcher and therapist Marie Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not exclusively in individual pathology, but also within larger systemic factors, such as the very institution of priesthood itself, the Catholic take on sexuality, clerical culture, power relations, governance structures of the Catholic Church, the process of formation for priesthood and religious life, and the complex manner in which these factors coalesce to create serious institutional risks for boundary violations, including child sexual abuse. Keenan draws on the priests' own words not to excuse their horrific crimes, but to offer the first in-depth account of a tragic, multi-faceted phenomenon. What emerges is a troubling portrait of a Church in crisis and a series of recommendations that call for nothing less than a new ecclesiology and a new, more critical theology. Only through radical institutional reform, Keenan argues, can a more representative and accountable Church emerge. Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Churchis a unique reference for scholars of the Church and therapists who work with both victims and offenders, as well as a forward-thinking blueprint for reform.

Author Biography

Marie Keenan, PhD, is a Researcher and Lecturer at the School of Applied Social Science, University College Dublin, and a member of the Advisory Board of the UCD Institute of Criminology. She is Chairperson of the Family Therapy Association of Ireland and a registered psychotherapist who has worked for over twenty years with survivors and perpetrators of sexual crime and their families, in community and forensic settings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
Sexual abuse, the catholic church, clerical men: a critical review
Child Sexual Abuse by Roman Catholic Clergy: The Scale and History of the Problem	p. 1
Organized Irresponsibility (I): The Organizational and Institutional Cultureofthe Catholic Church	p. 14
The View from the Ground: ClericalMen	p. 54
Theorizing sexual abuse
The Individual as the Unit of Analysis	p. 73
A Social Approach for Understanding a Social Problem	p. 95
Power and Gender	p. 115
The Irish case: its context and wider implications
Sexuality and Masculinity	p. 119
Organized Irresponsibility (II): Clerical Elites, Rules, Obedience, and Loneliness	p. 154
The Handling of Abuse Complaints	p. 180
Understanding and Explaining Child Sexual Abuse within the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, Organizational Culture	p. 230
Conclusion: Prospects, visions, agendas	p. 259
Appendix: The participants in the research	p. 277
Notes	p. 283
Glossary	p. 187
References	p. 293
Index	p. 337
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.