The Impact of Clerical and Seminary Culture on Irish Roman Catholic Clergy who have Sexually Abused Minors

This presentation is based on a study involving Irish Roman Catholic priests and religious brothers who had sexually abused children and who were in treatment for their sexual offending in Dublin, Ireland. The aim of the study was to provide a model of performance that would help con- ceptualise, never justify, child sexual abuse by Irish Catholic clergy. The methodology involved an analysis of the first-person narratives of the participants as they gave account of their sexual offending and a compre- hensive review of the relevant literature. The aspect of the study that will be highlighted in this presentation relates to the impact of clerical culture and seminary training on sexual offending by Irish Catholic clergy. By drawing on the clergy perpetrators’ accounts of their offending and Church Leaders’ accounts of their handling of abuse complaints, previ- ously under-theorised cultural and systemic features of the aetiology of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy are brought into view. The parameters of individual responsibility and systemic accountability are also theorised. The presentation concludes by arguing for more research on those as- pects of clerical culture and seminary training that have a place in the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.