The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses PDF Author: James T. O'Reilly
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199350124
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
The sexual abuse of children and teens by rogue priests in the U.S. Catholic Church is a heinous crime, and those who pray for a religious community as its ministers, priests and rabbis should never tolerate those who prey on that community. The legal disputes of recent years have produced many scandalous headlines and fuelled public discussion about the sexual abuse crisis within the clergy, a crisis that has cost the U.S. Catholic Church over $3 billion. In The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, two eminent experts, James O'Reilly and Margaret Chalmers, draw on the lessons of recent years to discern the interplay between civil damages law and global church-based canon law. In some countries civil and canon law, although autonomous systems of law, both form part of the church's legal duties. In the United States, freedom of religion issues have complicated how the state adjudicates both cases of abuse and who can be held responsible for clerical oversight. This book examines questions of civil and criminal liability, issues of respondeat superior and oversight, issues with statutes of limitations and dealing with allegations that occurred decades ago, and how the Church's internal judicial processes interact or clash with the civil pursuit of these cases.

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses

The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses PDF Author: James T. O'Reilly
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199350124
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 474

Get Book Here

Book Description
The sexual abuse of children and teens by rogue priests in the U.S. Catholic Church is a heinous crime, and those who pray for a religious community as its ministers, priests and rabbis should never tolerate those who prey on that community. The legal disputes of recent years have produced many scandalous headlines and fuelled public discussion about the sexual abuse crisis within the clergy, a crisis that has cost the U.S. Catholic Church over $3 billion. In The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses, two eminent experts, James O'Reilly and Margaret Chalmers, draw on the lessons of recent years to discern the interplay between civil damages law and global church-based canon law. In some countries civil and canon law, although autonomous systems of law, both form part of the church's legal duties. In the United States, freedom of religion issues have complicated how the state adjudicates both cases of abuse and who can be held responsible for clerical oversight. This book examines questions of civil and criminal liability, issues of respondeat superior and oversight, issues with statutes of limitations and dealing with allegations that occurred decades ago, and how the Church's internal judicial processes interact or clash with the civil pursuit of these cases.

Sacrilege

Sacrilege PDF Author: Leon J. Podles
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780979027994
Category : Child sexual abuse by clergy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Sacrilege explores the deep roots of the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal, revealing its full depth and breadth. In horrifying yet necessary detail, former federal investigator Leon Podles surveys the full extent of the damage, showing how victims were failed by bishops, laity, therapists, police, courts, press, and even popes. Examining the history behind today's headlines, Dr. Podles reveals how centuries-old theological errors encouraged blind submission to hierarchy, by making obedience to authority the highest virtue. He also shines a light on the new theological errors, popularized since Vatican II, that glorify every type of sexual expression--including pedophilia. Sacrilege will prove an essential resource for all those concerned with the history and future of Catholicism.

The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal

The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal PDF Author: Jerry J. Paresa
Publisher: Fides et Spes Press.
ISBN: 1647043972
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
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 they may continue to make informed, concrete, and effective steps to heal the Church and its people.

Letter to a Suffering Church

Letter to a Suffering Church PDF Author: Robert Barron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781943243488
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description


Perversion of Power

Perversion of Power PDF Author: Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 9780826515476
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Since 2002, the Roman Catholic Church has been in crisis over the sexual abuse of minors by priests and the cover-up of those crimes by bishops. Over 11,000 alleged victims have reported their experiences to the Church, and more than 4,700 priests since 1950 have been credibly accused of sexually victimizing minors. The Church has paid over one billion dollars to adults who claim to have been sexually abused by priests and there is no end in sight to these lawsuits. Celibacy, homosexuality in the priesthood, the infiltration into the priesthood of secular moral relativism, too much liberalism in the Church since Vatican II, damaging rollback of Vatican II reforms by conservative prelates--all have been suggested as causes for the crisis. This book, however, begins with the premise that, because the pattern of abuse and cover-up was so similar across the world, there is something fundamentally awry with Church traditions and power structures in relationship to sexuality and sexual abuse. Specifically, in chapters on suffering and sadomasochism, bodies and gender, desire and sexuality, celibacy and homosexuality, the author concludes that aspects of the Catholic theology of sexuality set the stage for the abuse of minors and its cover-up. Frawley-O'Dea also analyzes the American bishops' lack of pastoral care and tendency towards clerical narcissism--the belief that the needs of the hierarchy represent the needs of the wider Church--as central factors in the scandal. She balances this criticism with a discussion of the backgrounds of the bishops presiding over the crisis and the challenges they faced in their relationships with the Pope and Vatican officials. Drawing on twenty years of clinical experience, she imagines the dynamics of sexual abuse both from the victim's point of view and from the priest's, and she probes why the Church hierarchy, fellow priests, and lay people were silent for so long. Finally, Frawley-O'Dea examines factors internal to the Church and outside of it that drew this scandal into the public square and kept it there.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Lead Us Not Into Temptation PDF Author: Jason Berry
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252068126
Category : Child sexual abuse
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
While seminaries, by many accounts, admit an increasing number of homosexuals, women are strictly barred from ministerial roles. The church's time-honored tradition of "avoiding scandal" also backfires. For by the shielding of fallen clerics, Berry shows, the suffering of the abused is often compounded.

Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal

Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal PDF Author: Michael D'Antonio
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250034396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of 2013 A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013 An Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Nominee An explosive, sweeping account of the scandal that has sent the Catholic Church into a tailspin -- and the brave few who fought for justice In the mid-1980s a dynamic young monsignor assigned to the Vatican's embassy in Washington set out to investigate the problem of sexually abusive priests. He found a scandal in the making, confirmed by secret files revealing complaints that had been hidden from police and covered up by the Church hierarchy. He also understood that the United States judicial system was eager to punish offenders and those who aided them. He presented all of this to the American bishops, warning that the Church could be devastated by negative publicity and bankrupted by its legal liability. They ignored him. Meanwhile, a young lawyer listened to a new client describe an abusive sexual history with a priest that began when he was ten years old. His parents' complaints were downplayed by Church officials who offered them money to go away. The lawyer saw a claim that any defendant would want to settle. Then he began to suspect he was onto something bigger, involving thousands of priests who had abused countless children while the Church had done almost nothing about it. The lawsuit he filed would touch off a legal war of historic and global proportions. Part history, part journalism, and part true-crime thriller, Michael D'Antonio's Mortal Sins brings to mind landmark books such as All the President's Men, And the Band Played On, and The Informant, as it reveals a long and ferocious battle for the soul of the largest and oldest organization in the world.

The Corrupter of Boys

The Corrupter of Boys PDF Author: Dyan Elliott
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812252527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
In the fourth century, clerics began to distinguish themselves from members of the laity by virtue of their augmented claims to holiness. Because clerical celibacy was key to this distinction, religious authorities of all stripes—patristic authors, popes, theologians, canonists, monastic founders, and commentators—became progressively sensitive to sexual scandals that involved the clergy and developed sophisticated tactics for concealing or dispelling embarrassing lapses. According to Dyan Elliott, the fear of scandal dictated certain lines of action and inaction, the consequences of which are painfully apparent today. In The Corrupter of Boys, she demonstrates how, in conjunction with the requirement of clerical celibacy, scandal-averse policies at every conceivable level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy have enabled the widespread sexual abuse of boys and male adolescents within the Church. Elliott examines more than a millennium's worth of doctrine and practice to uncover the origins of a culture of secrecy and concealment of sin. She charts the continuities and changes, from late antiquity into the high Middle Ages, in the use of boys as sexual objects before focusing on four specific milieus in which boys and adolescents would have been especially at risk in the high and later Middle Ages: the monastery, the choir, the schools, and the episcopal court. The Corrupter of Boys is a work of stunning breadth and discomforting resonance, as Elliott concludes that the same clerical prerogatives and privileges that were formulated in late antiquity and the medieval era—and the same strategies to cover up the abuses they enable—remain very much in place.

Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too)

Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too) PDF Author: Brandon Vogt
Publisher: Ave Maria Press
ISBN: 1594717680
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Winner of a 2018 Catholic Press Association Award: Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith. (First Place). With atheism on the rise and millions tossing off religion, why would anyone consider the Catholic Church? Brandon Vogt, a bestselling author and the content director for Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, shares his passionate search for truth, a journey that culminated in the realization that Catholicism was right about a lot of things, maybe even everything. His persuasive case for the faith reveals a vision of Catholicism that has answers our world desperately needs and reminds those already in the Church what they love about it. A 2016 study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 25 percent of adults (39 percent of young adults) describe themselves as unaffiliated with any religion. Millions of these so-called “nones” have fled organized religion and many more have rejected God altogether. Brandon Vogt was one of those nones. When he converted to Catholicism in college, he knew how confusing that decision was to many of his friends and family. But he also knew that the evidence he discovered pointed to one conclusion: Catholicism is true. To his delight, he discovered it was also exceedingly good and beautiful. Why I Am Catholic traces Vogt’s spiritual journey, making a refreshing, twenty-first century case for the faith and answering questions being asked by agnostics, nones, and atheists, the audience for his popular website, StrangeNotions.com, where Catholics and atheists dialogue. With references to Catholic thinkers such as G. K. Chesterton, Ven. Fulton Sheen, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and Bishop Robert Barron, Vogt draws together lines of evidence to help seekers discover why they should be Catholic as an alternative. Why I Am Catholic serves as a compelling reproposal of the Church for former Catholics, a persuasive argument for truth and beauty to those who have become jaded and disenchanted with religion, and at the same time offers practicing Catholics a much-needed dose of confidence and clarity to affirm their faith against an increasingly skeptical culture.

Double Standard

Double Standard PDF Author: David F. Pierre
Publisher: eBookIt.com
ISBN: 1456604031
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Yes, Catholic priests terribly abused minors, and bishops failed to stop the unspeakable harm. That is an undeniable truth. Nothing justifies such an evil. However, major media outlets are unfairly attacking the Catholic Church, and this fast-paced, compelling book has the shocking evidence to prove it. This book addresses numerous topics, including: ... appalling cases of abuse and cover-ups happening today - but they're not happening in the Catholic Church ... proof that Catholic clergy do not offend more than teachers or those of other religious denominations ... data that shows that the Catholic clergy scandal is not about "pedophilia" ... affirmation that the Catholic Church may be the safest environment for children today ... research that uncovers the shady relationships between SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests), lawyers, and the media ... the alarming roots of SNAP's attacks on the Church ... the surprising truth about "repressed memories" ... unheard, agonized priests who deny the accusations against them ... evidence of how the "documentary" Deliver Us From Evil deceived moviegoers plus much more. Double Standard covers topics that the major media won't. There is no other book about the Catholic Church abuse narrative like this one.