Posted 04 November 2011
Child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church - views from within the Irish clergy
Following over fifteen years of research including therapy sessions with abusive clergy and their victims, psychotherapist and social worker Dr Marie Keenan has published a troubling portrait of child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church, using the Irish Church as a case study.
In her 400 page analysis - Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church (Oxford University Press, New York) - Dr Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not just within the individual psychology of the perpetrators, but also within the very cultural fabric of the priesthood and the organisational structures of the Catholic Church.
“Sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is not simply a problem of ‘flawed’ individuals or of individuals with an ‘overwhelming sexual drive’,” says Dr Keenan from the , University College Dublin, Ireland.
“Rather, it is a complex problem weaved together from theological, sociological, psychological, and historical threads.”
In her work, Dr Keenan reveals a portrait of a clerical culture where power relations and governance structures disillusioned and disenfranchised many young men who entered into seminaries trusting of the system.
| Dr Marie Keenan interviewed by Pat Kenny on RTÉ Radio One |
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According to Dr Keenan, as time went on, many young priests became reserved, upset, and often disillusioned by what they experienced and witnessed.
Keenan identifies a culture of ‘absolute conformity’ within the clerical setting where relationships were ‘devoid of honest engagement’ and based more on ‘secrecy and denial of male expression and emotion’.
She highlights a system of authority within the Catholic Church where obedience, rule-keeping, and hierarchical authority were emphasised, and loyalty and conformity to the brotherhood was expected.
But the research also reveals that there were often ‘different rules for different people’ within the clergy.
In the words of one of the clergy whose narrative is included in the research, ‘you had to play the system