Caring About the Welfare of Catholic Clergy: My Perspective

Abstract

A recent issue of Studies carried a review of my book, Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power and Organizational Culture, published this year by Oxford University Press . The reviewer, Fr Leon Ó Giolláin SJ, a chaplain in University College Dublin, where I work myself, offered readers his perspective on my contribution to this complex and difficult chapter in the church’s history. I remain humbled that Studies should publish a review of my work but I am very unhappy that Fr Ó Giolláin, basing his critique on flawed argument and a misreading of my work, departed from academic norms and from the spirit of Studies to launch what seemed a deeply personal attack on the integrity of my scholarship. At the very least, I believe that he made a fundamental error in failing to distinguish adequately in his argument between my new research, some of which is presented and discussed in part 3 of the book, from my more general review of other people’s work - the empirical, theoretical and theological state of the field - which is offered in parts 1 and 2, so that he conflates both as 'her study' and, in my view, confuses readers in the process. It is clear that he feels deeply about many aspects of this topic, but it is my review of the literature on the sexual behaviour of ‘normal’ clergy, my treatise of mandatory celibacy and my views on seminary formation, that seem to cause him most distress.