Predatory Priests, Silenced Victims

The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church captured headlines and mobilized public outrage in January 2002. But much of the commentary that immediately followed was reductionistic, focusing on single "causes" of clerical abuse such as mandatory celibacy, homosexuality, sexual repressiveness or sexual permissiveness, anti-Catholicism, and a decadent secular culture. Predatory Priests, Silenced Victims: The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church, a collection of groundbreaking articles edited by Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea and Virginia Goldner, eschews such one-size-fits all theorizing. In its place, the abuse situation is explored in all its troubling complexity, as contributors take into account the experiences, respectively, of the victim/survivor, the abuser/perpetrator, and the bystander (whether family member, professional/clergy, or the community at large).The contributors, all experts on the issues involved in clerical sexual abuse, comprise psychoanalysts, biblical scholars, clergy, historians, victim/survivors, and cultural critics. They include novelist and critic Mary Gordon; Episcopal priest Anne Richards; Catholic priest Tom Doyle; psychoanalysts Richard Gartner, Andrea Celenza, and Adrienne Harris; historian and queer theorist Mark Jordan; biblical scholar Gillian Walker; survivor activist Kathleen Dwyer, and many others. Setting polemics to the side, Predatory Priests, Silenced Victims provides a sober and sobering analysis of the interlacing historical, doctrinal, and psychological issues that came together in the sexual abuse scandal. It is mandatory reading for all who seek thoughtful, informed commentary on a crisis long in the making and yet to be resolved.