Priesthood and Clerical Abuse Booklist.

Boisvert & Goss: Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Abuse - Breaking the Silence

Cozzens, D: The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood.

Crosby: Rethinking Celibacy, Reclaiming the Church

DOYLE & SIPE: Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes- The Catholic Church's 2000 Year Trail of Sexual Abuse

FRAWLEY–O’DEA: Perversion of Power

MITCHELL, T: Betrayal of the Innocents

RIGERT, Joe: An Irish Tragedy

SIPE, A.W.R: Sex, Priests and Power

BOISVERT & GOSS: Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: breaking the silence

Breaking the Silence

Explores the issue of homoeroticism in Catholic culture and the controversy surrounding clerical sexual misconduct.

This timely and compelling collection critically analyzes the official Roman Catholic hierarchy's attitude toward homosexual clergy. Inspired by Mark Jordan's controversial The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism, the essays-edited by Boisvert (dean of students, Concordia Univ.) and Goss (pastor, MCC Church) and written by leading scholars and religious practitioners-attempt to debunk the myth that gay priests are pedophiles and are responsible for the moral decline of modern Catholic values. In fact, this refreshingly positive assessment of gay American Catholic priests attempts to reverse the present atmosphere of suspicion and redirect the blame at hypocrisy while giving voice to victims. Hard-hitting, articulate, and characterized by a prophet's righteousness, these sound essays are essential reading for both clergy and laity trying to come to terms with the recent sex abuse scandals. A wonderfully enlightened read; recommended for academic and public libraries.-John-Leonard Berg, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Platteville

1. Celibate Men, Ambivalent Saints, and Games of Desire Donald L. Boisvert
2. Naming the Mechanisms of Self-Deception: A cAll to Liberation for Gay Roman Catholic Clergy David M. Mellott
3. Speaking Loud or Shutting Up: The Homosexual -Type Problem Edward J.Ingebretsen
4. Silencing Sodom Chuck Colbert
5. Anglican Bodies: The Gift of Heretical Liminality and the Risk of relaxed Vigilance Jay Emerson Johnson
6. Duplicity Writ Large Mary E. Hunt
7. Always a Bride, Never a Groom Robert F Goss
8. Pandora's Gauntlet: Curiosity Enough to Care and Hope Enough to Question Marie Cartier
9. A Welcome Voice Breaks the Silence in an Exclusively Male Clerical Tradition Lorine M Getz
10. Where Have all the Young Girls Gone? Mary Ann Tolbert
11. Breaking the Silence in Public: A Case Study Michael Kelly
12. Those Troubling Gay Priests Bernard Schlager
13. Lessons from our Neighbours: An Appreciation and a Query to Mark Jordan Karen Lebacqz
14. Neither do I: A Meditation on Scapegoating William Glenn
15. Catholicism and a Crisis of Intimate Relations Edward J. Ingebretsen
16. After Silence Mark D. Jordan

FRAWLEY–O’DEA: Perversion of Power

Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

"If one could have only one book on the sexual abuse crisis in the United States Catholic Church Frawley–O’Dea’sPerversion of Power would be the top choice. This book is a comprehensive summary and analysis of the data available at this time. She summarizes the John Jay Survey (2/27/04) commissioned by the United States bishops and used by them as the definitive word on clergy abuse and a justification for calling the disaster over. But O’Dea puts that claim and other clerical rationalizations, denials, and deceptions to the test.

She writes convincingly because she has a command of the facts plus the psychological and analytic skills to spotlight the vagaries of the complicated institutional and personal distortions and suffering at the heart of the catastrophic situation of clergy violating children and the vulnerable and the authorities in charge excusing, covering up, and participating in schemes that cheat believers and society of honest leadership and protection. As one reviewer summed up the book’s message, “there is no more hypocritical and perverse exploitation of power than the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.”

This book is of lasting value because it reports an epic crisis in context, makes it understandable, and challenges the fundamental misconceptions that produced the calamity in the first place and keep structures in place that will repeat another crisis if not adequately met with the insight and experience even now available. The author provides a vade mecum for those who want to understand abuse of the vulnerable and protect children from the domination and abuse of dangerously powerful forces"

- Richard Sipe

ROBINSON: Confronting Power & Sex in the Catholic Church

Robinson, Bishop Geoffrey.

Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.

Reclainming the Spirit of Jesus

Bishop Robinson was the lead person in the Australiuan Bishops' response to the scandal of clerical abuse in that country, an experience that he found harrowing. After his retirement from active ministry, he found the freedom to write this reflection on his experience and conclusions - in which he found that part of the problem lies right in the heart of the institutional strucutures of the Catholic church, with its unremitting insistence on compulsory celibacy, and overly centralised, hierarchical power strucutres which fail to implement the clear directives of Vatican II.

This thoughtful and thought provoking book goes right to the heart of the problem, and is strongly recommended.

"Drawing on his own experience in responding to abuse, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in this explosive work methodically offers a critique of the church's use and misuse of power, from the pope proclaiming infallibly down to the preacher claiming a divine authority for every word spoken from the pulpit. Going back to the Bible and, above all, to the teaching of Jesus, he presents an approach to sexual morality that is profound, compassionate, and people-centered. He stresses the priority of the hierarchy of holiness over the hierarchy of power. He offers nothing less than a vision for a church of the third millennium--a church that wants to see in its members the responsibility appropriate to adults rather than the obedience appropriate to children and wants to help all people to grow to become all they are capable of being. You will love or hate this book but not be able to remain neutral."

SIPE, A.W.R: Sex, Priests and Power

Anatomy of a Crisis

From every corner of this country and from countires around the world, reports of sexual abuse, exploitation, and ongoing sexual misconduct by Catholic priests have appeared in every major newspaper, magazine, and TV and Radio talk show. What was first denied by church officials finally turned into a deluge of overwhelming evidence played out in legal settlements and courtrooms. Richard Sipe startled the world in 1990 with his controversial book,A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy, which presented evidence of sexual activity by almost 50% of the Roman Catholic priesthood. In this book, Richard Sipe examines the continuing sexual crisis facing the Catholicm Church today. Has the storm of publicity and controvery caused the church to acknowledge any of the accusations? Will the church accept statistical evidence or alter the way in which it trains its clergy? How has it come to grips with reforming or retraining abusers? Has it acknowledged the spread of AIDS among its ranks?Why does the church oppress women and react with hostility and fear towards them?Sex, Priests, andPower: Anatomy of a Crisisaddresses these and other questions. The book substantiates its conclusions with many vivid and chilling stories of sexual abuse by clergy against children, women, and members of its own ranks... * Father James Porter victimized 200 children between 1960-1972 while an active parish priest. * A 52-year-old priest, under the guise of family friend and tutor, sexually abused two sisters for two years. They were ages six and eight at the start of the abuse. * A priest who teaches high school seeks out a sophomore student for a homosexual liaison. After two years he ends the relationship in favor of a new sophomore love interest. The priest has honed this continuing pattern of sexual exploitation to perfection. Not simply satisified with exposing the epic crisis, Richard Sipe analyzes the structure underlying the church's celibate/sexual system andpoiints out unsolved problems with the current teachings. He calls for an honest, open discussion of sexuality and celibacy within the church and offers a refined description of the practice. Sex, Priests, and Poweris an invitation to exorcise the demons that threaten to engulf a mighty institution. Richard Sipe argues convincingly for an honest examination of the power structure of the Catholic Church and a thorough search for the factors that diminish and distort religion.

Reviews:

by Anson Shupe, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne

WILLS, G: Papal Sin

Structures of Deceit
Doubleday, 2001

326 pages

"The truth, we are told, will make us free. It is time to free Catholics, lay as well as clerical, from the structures of deceit that are our subtle modern form of papal sin. Paler, subtler, less dramatic than the sins castigated by Orcagna or Dante, these are the quiet sins of intellectual betrayal." --from the Introduction From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills comes an assured, acutely insightful--and occasionally stinging--critique of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy from the nineteenth century to the present. Papal Sin in the past was blatant, as Catholics themselves realized when they painted popes roasting in hell on their own church walls. Surely, the great abuses of the past--the nepotism, murders, and wars of conquest--no longer prevail; yet, the sin of the modern papacy, as revealed by Garry Wills in his penetrating new book, is every bit as real, though less obvious than the old sins. Wills describes a papacy that seems steadfastly unwilling to face the truth about itself, its past, and its relations with others. The refusal of the authorities of the Church to be honest about its teachings has needlessly exacerbated original mistakes. Even when the Vatican has tried to tell the truth--e.g., about Catholics and the Holocaust--it has ended up resorting to historical distortions and evasions. The same is true when the papacy has attempted to deal with its record of discrimination against women, or with its unbelievable assertion that "natural law" dictates its sexual code. Though the blithe disregard of some Catholics for papal directives has occasionally been attributed to mere hedonism or willfulness, it actually reflects a failure, after long trying on their part, to find a credible level of honesty in the official positions adopted by modern popes. On many issues outside the realm of revealed doctrine, the papacy has made itself unbelievable even to the well-disposed laity. The resulting distrust is in fact a neglected reason for the shortage of priests. Entirely aside from the public uproar over celibacy, potential clergy have proven unwilling to put themselves in a position that supports dishonest teachings. Wills traces the rise of the papacy's stubborn resistance to the truth, beginning with the challenges posed in the nineteenth century by science, democracy, scriptural scholarship, and rigorous history. The legacy of that resistance, despite the brief flare of John XXIII's papacy and some good initiatives in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council (later baffled), is still strong in the Vatican. Finally Wills reminds the reader of the positive potential of the Church by turning to some great truth tellers of the Catholic tradition--St. Augustine, John Henry Newman, John Acton, and John XXIII. In them, Wills shows that the righteous path can still be taken, if only the Vatican will muster the courage to speak even embarrassing truths in the name of Truth itself.