Beyond Bad Apples Clericalism, Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse, and Horizons for Healing
A Zoom Presentation for Survivors and Those Who Care for Them on Monday, March 27, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
Despite meaningful progress toward addressing clergy perpetrated sexual abuse, abuse and its traumatic legacy persist as all-too-familiar crises in the Catholic Church. Analyses of these crises have proposed numerous causes and conditions that make abuse possible, but few efforts have been made to assess the relationship between clericalism—a system of power that sets clergy ‘above and apart’ from other members of the Church on the sole basis of their ordination— and abuse. Drawing on extensive research and an original survey of nearly 300 professional Catholic ministers (lay, religious, and ordained), this presentation and conversation will explore the relationship between clericalism and abuse and propose ways that we might imagine hope and healing in a church no longer characterized by the undue exaltation of clerical status and authority.
A native of Evansville, IN and a professor from Santa Clara University, Paul Schutz received his B.A. in English from Boston College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Fordham University. His research focuses on the meaning and significance of creation in the Christian tradition, with an emphasis on how scientific research might inform religious accounts of humanity’s relationship with other-than-human creatures.
For more information contact Paula Kaempffer, Outreach Coordinator for Restorative Justice & Abuse Prevention for the Archdiocese, at . Register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with the link to join. Please register at this link.