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The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal: Primer from the Pew-Unpacking Psychological, Sociopolitical & Cultural
"...carefully analysed and balanced. The author carefully keeps victim survivors at the forefront...really interesting and well researched." —Netgalley reviewer
"...authoritative but very readable....It's by far the most comprehensive, reasonable, and complete book on the crisis." —Netgalley reviewer
An enduring solution starts with the correct diagnosis...
The Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal has haunted the lives of its victims and the Catholic community at large for decades. Even today, it continues to undermine the credibility of the Church and dishearten its faithful. Catholics remain rightfully frustrated and disappointed as Church leaders try to move beyond this ugly chapter without creating a cohesive plan to address the underlying issues that contributed to the scandal in the first place. Media coverage has often oversimplified these contributing factors, leaving many with the impression that simplistic solutions can fix the Church's problems. This is not the case.
Written from an insider's perspective, this book strives to dispel unhelpful caricatures and more fully examine the broad contextual and aggravating factors that make the Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal. It is heavily researched work designed to help parishioners, priests, and Church leaders more clearly consider the complexities of the crisis so that may continue to make informed, concrete, and effective steps to heal the Church and its people.
"...authoritative but very readable....It's by far the most comprehensive, reasonable, and complete book on the crisis." —Netgalley reviewer
An enduring solution starts with the correct diagnosis...
The Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal has haunted the lives of its victims and the Catholic community at large for decades. Even today, it continues to undermine the credibility of the Church and dishearten its faithful. Catholics remain rightfully frustrated and disappointed as Church leaders try to move beyond this ugly chapter without creating a cohesive plan to address the underlying issues that contributed to the scandal in the first place. Media coverage has often oversimplified these contributing factors, leaving many with the impression that simplistic solutions can fix the Church's problems. This is not the case.
Written from an insider's perspective, this book strives to dispel unhelpful caricatures and more fully examine the broad contextual and aggravating factors that make the Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal. It is heavily researched work designed to help parishioners, priests, and Church leaders more clearly consider the complexities of the crisis so that may continue to make informed, concrete, and effective steps to heal the Church and its people.
298 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 22, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 25, 2022
This was a difficult book to review; I am sure it was probably a difficult book to write as well. The impact on “The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal” has been significant for many Catholics, myself included; however, without a good understanding of what went wrong it is also difficult to move forward. This book makes a good attempt to fill in some of the details surrounding the Church’s lack of understanding, as well as its admitted inadequate response. Paresa begins with trying to establish the common terms and vocabulary needed to actually have a productive analysis and discussion. Then he moves into what he sees as the proximate, contextual and aggravating causes/factors … before jumping a little too soon into the break down in communications before returning what he sees as the causal factors that are common to society at large and aggravated by the size of the church bureaucracy. All relevant points that unfortunately give the start something of an apologetic/defensive tone. Added to this are some additional factors that are more unique to the catholic clergy … such as the “clericalism” and the nature of an organization with forgiveness as part the foundation.
It is important to note here that while the author cites several statistics to support his conclusions, these numbers really just highlight correlation and not causation. This is especially true with his presumption that the higher ration of homosexual clergy and young male victims suggests an obvious solution where reducing one will reduce the other. While that may in fact be true, the author doesn’t actually provide any underlying reason for that belief, so it comes across a bit homophobic (especially when implying the failure of science to identify a specific genetic cause of homosexual orientation proves that such doesn’t exist … which should have been an obvious fallacy). The other factors seem to be spot on though … such as the shortage of priests (which increase pressure to keep what you have combined with inadequate supervision on junior and/or less mature clergy), the relative independence of the Bishops (and the idea of subsidiarity within the church), the cumbersome jurisprudence within the Church-State more focused on forgiveness and reform instead of justice.
Not satisfied with the Church’s response to date, the author then provides several [reasonable] recommendations on what the Church can and should do differently, most of which focuses on screening and formation along with a more open and cooperative relationship with civil authorities. Also examined is the impact of regulating celibacy on the priest shortage and what changing that could mean theologically (this was by far the most interesting part of the book for me). The author closes with a more in depth look at the due process and legal issues involved with prosecuting abuse within the Church, as well as the ontological issues with removing a priest from the clerical state. Over all, this is a solid book that deals with the very human factors that went into making the abuse scandal a “wicked” problem for the faithful to deal with.
I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#TheCatholicSexualAbuseScandal #NetGalley
It is important to note here that while the author cites several statistics to support his conclusions, these numbers really just highlight correlation and not causation. This is especially true with his presumption that the higher ration of homosexual clergy and young male victims suggests an obvious solution where reducing one will reduce the other. While that may in fact be true, the author doesn’t actually provide any underlying reason for that belief, so it comes across a bit homophobic (especially when implying the failure of science to identify a specific genetic cause of homosexual orientation proves that such doesn’t exist … which should have been an obvious fallacy). The other factors seem to be spot on though … such as the shortage of priests (which increase pressure to keep what you have combined with inadequate supervision on junior and/or less mature clergy), the relative independence of the Bishops (and the idea of subsidiarity within the church), the cumbersome jurisprudence within the Church-State more focused on forgiveness and reform instead of justice.
Not satisfied with the Church’s response to date, the author then provides several [reasonable] recommendations on what the Church can and should do differently, most of which focuses on screening and formation along with a more open and cooperative relationship with civil authorities. Also examined is the impact of regulating celibacy on the priest shortage and what changing that could mean theologically (this was by far the most interesting part of the book for me). The author closes with a more in depth look at the due process and legal issues involved with prosecuting abuse within the Church, as well as the ontological issues with removing a priest from the clerical state. Over all, this is a solid book that deals with the very human factors that went into making the abuse scandal a “wicked” problem for the faithful to deal with.
I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#TheCatholicSexualAbuseScandal #NetGalley
April 3, 2022
I was really looking forward to this book but I quickly realized that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I’ll start with what I thought this book would be: discussion of the sexual abuse as well as how it happened, who it happened to etc. what it actually is: a very thorough examination of what elements of the Catholic Church left such a wide opening for something like this to occur and how to properly understand, come to terms with and prevent future sexual abuse in the church. This book is definitely an important work of nonfiction and an opportunity to learn from this horrendous situation and how to support victims going forward, it just wasn’t quite the book I thought it would be. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the response of the church, the circumstances that led to sexual abuse or to learn more about the methodical investigation of this problem. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book!
March 2, 2022
There is a lot of detail here and it is carefully analysed and balanced. The author carefully keeps victim survivors at the forefront when considering the Catholic Church’s responses over time to accusations of abuse. A bit too much religious rhetoric for my liking, but other than that really interesting and well researched.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews