scholarly journals Catholic Church Responses to Clergy-Child Sexual Abuse and Mandatory Reporting Exemptions in Victoria, Australia: A Discursive Critique

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 58-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Andre Guerzoni ◽  
Hannah Graham
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Mandatory Reporting ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Church Responses

This article presents empirical findings from a critical discourse analysis of institutional responses by the Catholic Church to clergy-child sexual abuse in Victoria, Australia. A sample of 28 documents, comprising 1,394 pages, is analysed in the context of the 2012-2013 Victorian Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations. Sykes and Matza’s (1957) and Cohen’s (1993) techniques of, respectively, neutralisation and denial are used to reveal the Catholic Church’s Janus-faced responses to clergy-child sexual abuse and mandatory reporting requirements. Paradoxical tensions are observed between Catholic Canonical law and clerical practices, and the extent of compliance with secular law and referral of allegations to authorities. Concerns centre on Church secrecy, clerical defences of the confessional in justification of inaction, and the Melbourne Response compensation scheme. Our research findings underscore the need for greater Church transparency and accountability; we advocate for mandatory reporting law reform and institutional reform, including adjustments to the confessional ritual.

scholarly journals Bad Apples, Bad Barrel: Exploring Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy in Australia

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi Death
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Institutional Abuse ◽  
Cover Up

This paper considers constructions of institutional culture and power in the cover-up of child sexual abuse (CSA) by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church of Australia. The issue of cover-up has previously been considered in international inquiries as an institutional failing that has caused significant harm to victims of CSA by Catholic Clergy. Evidence given by select representatives of the Catholic Church in two government inquiries into institutional abuse carried out in Australia is considered here. This evidence suggests that, where cover-up has occurred, it has been reliant on the abuse of institutional power and resulted in direct emotional, psychological and spiritual harm to victims of abuse. Despite international recognition of cover-up as institutional abuse, evidence presented by Roman Catholic Representatives to the Victorian Inquiry denied there was an institutionalised cover-up. Responding to this evidence, this paper queries whether the primary foundation of cover-up conforms to the ‘bad apple theory’ in that it relates only to a few individuals, or the ‘bad barrel theory’ of institutional structure and culture.

Exceptional Sexual Harms

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 734-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Gleeson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Distinct Sense ◽  
Church Personnel

Questioning of Catholic Church leaders in the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has revealed a distinct sense of immunity and lack of responsibility for the crimes of church personnel, which has resulted in stymied justice for complainants in sexual abuse lawsuits. In this article, I explore this immunity by examining it in the context of treatments of sexual harms in other areas of private law, particularly religious exceptions to discrimination law, by which religious organizations are granted immunity from the modern rationale of the harms of discrimination on the grounds of sex and sexual orientation. In situating child sexual abuse claims in the broader sphere of private law, I aim to reveal law’s incoherent logic of sexual harms, and its implications for justice. The example of religious exceptions illustrates an incoherent problematization of sexual harm and responsibility in contemporary legal and political systems that aim to uphold modern values of equality and dignity while sustaining incompatible doctrines of religious autonomy.

The discursive production of public inquiries: The case of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

2020 ◽  
pp. 174165902095345
Author(s):  
Matthew Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
News Media ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
The Right ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Church

Since the turn of the century, public inquiries into the perpetration and concealment of child sexual abuse within religious institutions have proliferated throughout Europe, North America and Australasia. This article examines the role that news media discourses might play in supporting this trend. Taking Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as a case study, I compare how news media constructed its precipitating issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church at two different points in time: the period surrounding the announcement of the Royal Commission and a period 10 years earlier when calls were made for a Royal Commission that were not actualised. I find that in the decade before the Royal Commission’s establishment news media deemed the Church capable of and responsible for delivering justice, and as such licensed it to respond to allegations of abuse internally. In the period surrounding the Royal Commission’s establishment, however, the Church was rendered complicit and had lost its authority to manage the issue internally, while the State had become marked as responsible for recourse instead. This suggests that the emergence of the Royal Commission was imbricated in broader discursive shifts regarding which institution was attributed the right and responsibility to respond. These findings both indicate that news media discourses may play a role in facilitating or inhibiting the emergence of public inquiries and also raise critical questions about the consequences of a discursive shift that centres the State as responsible for and capable of delivering justice in the aftermath of institutional child sexual abuse.

The spoken and unspoken nature of child abuse in the miniseries Devil’s Playground: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Catholic Church and television drama in Australia

2016 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-93
Author(s):  
Terrie Waddell ◽  
Timothy W Jones
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Green Light ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Abusive Behaviour

In a departure from Fred Schepisi’s film The Devil’s Playground, the television sequel Devil’s Playground focuses on the cultural impact of priest child abuse. It will be argued that the prolific mainstream media coverage of these crimes before the series was made, and anticipated during its screening, lent a form of permission to green light the production. In focusing on Case 28 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, this article will draw attention to the problematic nature of dramatising priest abuse in mainstream Australian television. While victims have willingly voiced graphic details of the sexual violence they experienced as children, after decades of silence, it is as if networks and producers are only now awkwardly grappling with these uncomfortable realities. In the process of sanitising such abusive behaviour, they reduce the degree of cruelty that survivors are intent on communicating.

scholarly journals Early Prevention of Maternal Sexual Abuse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Gerke ◽  
Tatjana Dietz
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Early Prevention ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Hebrew University ◽  
Research Findings

AbstractChild sexual abuse has been discussed thoroughly; however, marginalized groups of victims such as victims of child sexual abuse in early childhood and victims of maternal sexual abuse have rarely been considered. This essay combines these two relevant perspectives in child protection and aims to pin out future directions in the field of child abuse and specifically maternal sexual abuse and its early prevention. In the course of the 7th Haruv International PhD Workshop on Child Maltreatment at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, in 2019 the topics of maternal sexual abuse and early prevention of child maltreatment in Germany were discussed and intertwined. Problems concerning the specific research of maternal sexual abuse in early childhood and prevention were identified. Both, maternal sexual abuse as well as sexual abuse in early childhood, i.e. before the age of three, are underreported topics. Society still follows a “friendly mother illusion” while recent cases in German media as well as research findings indicate that the mother can be a perpetrator of child sexual abuse. Similarly, sexual abuse in early childhood, namely abuse before the age of three, is existent; although the recognition of it is difficult and young children are, in regards to their age and development especially vulnerable. They need protective adults in their environment, who are aware of sexual abuse in the first years of life. Raising awareness on marginalized or tabooed topics can be a form of prevention. An open dialog in research and practice about the so far marginalized topics of maternal sexual abuse and sexual abuse in early childhood is crucial.

Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse: An Analysis of Issues, Educational Programs, and Research Findings

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 614-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah J. Tharinger ◽  
James J. Krivacska ◽  
Marsha Laye-McDonough ◽  
Linda Jamison ◽  
Gayle G. Vincent ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Research Findings
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