Time to Listen: Confronting Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy in Ireland

The Catholic Church in recent years has been rocked by a series of scandals involving child sexual abuse by members of the clergy. For many the Churchs response to this abuse has been seriously inadequate and there is some question whether the Church can ever regain the trust and affection it enjoyed in years past. How did things go so wrong This book is the result of the first major assessment internationally by an independent research agency of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Carried out by highly respected researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the study provides a multifaceted picture of the impact of clerical abuse on the extended Church community. It looks at the historical views of the Church and others on sexual abuse and the challenges of combining Canon Law with the responsibility of the State in dealing with abuse.

The researchers interviewed adults who were abused by clergy as children; clergy members who were convicted of abuse (some of whom are still in prison); family members of those abused and abusers; colleagues of abusers; and bishops and delegates with a special responsibility for management of complaints of abuse in dioceses. In addition, a major phone survey was carried out with members of the general public of their views on Church management of clerical abuse. Time to Listen makes a timely and important contribution to our understanding of this complex and controversial issue.

Reviews

". . . groundbreaking, comprehensive . . . a remarkable accomplishment. . . . With this study, Ireland has become the international leader in developing a model programme for comprehensive and collaborative quality research on clergy sexual abuse . . . this study represents exactly what other Church officials and academics should collaboratively do in countries around the world . . ."

Professor Thomas G. Plante, Professor of Psychology, Santa Clara University (from the Foreword)

About the Authors

Ms Helen Goode, Professor Hannah McGee and Professor Ciarn OBoyle are based at the Health Services Research Centre, Department of Psychology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.