This article reports on a retrospective study of cases of child sexual abuse complaints made against clergy, other employed pastoral staff, and volunteers in the Anglican Church of Australia between 1990 and 2008. There were 191 allegations of sexual abuse made by 180 complainants against 135 individuals. Twenty-seven of those 135 had more than…

Most sexual offense research focuses on offender motivation and individual risk factors rather than the criminal events themselves. This article provides an analysis of data from two studies on child sexual abuse by Catholic priests to help understand the opportunities clergy had or created to abuse youth. Findings show that situational factors…

The prevalence of child sexual abuse demands innovative approaches to prevent further victimization. The online environment provides new opportunities to expand existing child sexual abuse prevention trainings that target adult gatekeepers and allow for large scale interventions that are fiscally viable. This article discusses the benefits and…

The aim of this investigation was to undertake an exploratory analysis of clerics who sexually offend and the circumstances related to these offenses. Thirty-three adult male religious leaders who had been charged with a sexual offense against a child or adolescent were included in the study. This study examined descriptive information about…

The sexual abuse of children and adolescents by Roman Catholic priests entails a violation of meaning as well as persons. Precisely because the priest is regarded by Catholics as an "alter Christus," another Christ, his violation of a child's or adolescent's body is also a violation of a sacred trust and worldview. The implications of this…

In this paper, we offer a way to understand the spiritual dimension of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse. Spirituality is defined as a search for the sacred--a process of discovery, conservation, and transformation that evolves over the lifespan. We describe the ways in which clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse impacts negatively on the individual's…

Emerging data suggests that as children, gay males have an increased risk for physical and sexual abuse. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a significant subset of children abused by clergy identify as gay as adults. However, we know very little about the impact of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse in childhood on the development and psychosocial…

Incorporating elements from broadband theories of psychological adaptation to extreme adversity, including Summit's (1983) Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, Finkelhor and Browne's (1986) Traumagenic Dynamics Model of sexual abuse, and Pyszczynski and colleagues' (1997) Terror Management Theory, this paper proposes a unified theoretical…

The existence of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church has shocked many. In this article, the authors review the history of child sexual abuse in the church, the recent events that brought this tragedy into societal consciousness, and the efforts by the church to conceal the abuse. Two sources of empirical literature, the general…

Clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse rose to public attention in 2002 through the disclosure of abuse by Catholic priests within the Archdiocese of Boston and a simultaneous cover-up by church hierarchy. Similar patterns have since been described in other Catholic dioceses and in other faith denominations. While recent studies have examined the impact…

This article discusses the impact of the clergy abuse scandal in the Catholic Church on nonabused adult members of Catholic faith communities and on those communities as a whole. The themes discussed are based on three focus groups conducted as an initial step in the development of interventions for affected parish communities. Four major themes…

This article will present the restorative justice model and examine how the restorative justice philosophy and process can be applied to clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and religious sexual misconduct to resolve legal claims and allow the process of healing to begin. Restorative justice is a holistic approach to criminal, civil, and church law…

This study examines the impact of child sexual molestation on men assaulted as children by Catholic clergy. In-depth interviews were used to conduct a qualitative analysis of how clergy-perpetrated childhood sexual abuse affected the adult psychological and/or psychosocial functioning of nine men. Subjects were selected in coordination with a…

Women remain perhaps the forgotten majority of persons to survive clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse. The impact of this abuse of women has been largely overlooked. Through a qualitative exploration of narratives from semistructured interviews of 25 women sexually abused by clergy (18 as adults and 7 as children), this study examined how the women…

The literature on clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse suggests that there are two modal populations of survivors: boys and adult women. We review what is known about trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder following sexual abuse and explore the different treatment needs for these two survivor groups. For children, clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse can…