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A Tragic Grace: The Catholic Church and Child Sexual Abuse
A Tragic Grace is a direct, honest look at a difficult child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. It includes the latest pastoral and psychological insights coupled with the author's original research. It documents this "sustained crisis" in the Church and offers concrete suggestions on how to understand and deal with the subject. Most importantly, A Tragic Grace offers a vision of hope. Within the seeds of this tragedy, the author sees the possibility of a stronger, more open, and accountable Church emerging.
126 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1996
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September 19, 2024
A RELATIVELY "OPTIMISTIC" VIEW OF THE CHURCH IN THE WAKE OF THE ABUSE SCANDALS
Stephen Joseph Rossetti (born 1951) is a Catholic priest, author, educator, licensed psychologist, retreat master and expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests. He has written/edited other books such as 'Slayer of the Soul: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church,' 'Letters to My Brothers: Words of Hope and Challenge for Priests,' 'The Joy of Priesthood,' 'Born of the Eucharist: A Spirituality for Priests,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, "This book offers a new way... The insights offered here are the hard lessons of many years of mistakes, costly mistakes... But the Church has no monopoly on such errors. These costly errors have been made by secular authorities and mental health professionals, too... Embedded in this work is a message of hope and, possibly, even a story of human greatness. We are learning. Things are changing. The word is getting out... there are many simple ideas in this book... But the real message calls for a change of heart." (Pg. xii-xiii)
He suggests, "Since parental support is considered to be an important factor in the fostering of religious vocations, there is a strong likelihood that incidents of clergy sexual misconduct will have a negative effect on future vocations." (Pg. 31) He adds, "The phenomenon of clergy-child sexual abuse appears to be damaging seriously the credibility of the Catholic Church to police its own ranks." (Pg. 38) He also notes, "Support for mandatory celibacy, which is already low, if eroded even further by incidents of priests being involved in child sexual abuse." (Pg. 40)
He states, "In the ten years in which Saint Luke institute has treated over three hundred Catholic priests who have sexually molested minors, they currently know of only two who have relapsed into child sexual abuse. While it is likely there are others whom they do not know about, their experience to date suggests that it is improbable that a priest will relapse if he had done well in residential treatment, complied with their five-year aftercare program, and has engaged in ongoing supervision and outpatient treatment. It should be noted that published data on recidivism rates are not uniformly positive... While there are reasons to be optimistic about the results of newer treatments, some caution and a healthy skepticism are not unwarranted." (Pg. 90)
He says in the last chapter, "The Church has been accused of engaging in an organized conspiracy of shielding priest-perpetrators of child sexual abuse from the law. I have not seen evidence of an organized conspiracy. My experience is that most bishops have been deeply concerned with instances of child sexual abuse and have responded as well as they were able. Despite this good will, however, many shocking errors have been made." (Pg. 115)
He contends, "my clinical experience suggests that approximately 2 to 7 percent of Catholic clergy are sexually involved with minors at some point in their priestly lives. While this is a terrible reality, these men are still a small minority of the priesthood." (Pg. 117)
While Fr. Rossetti's somewhat "hopeful" view is not shared by some others, this book will be of definite interest to anyone studying this issue.
Stephen Joseph Rossetti (born 1951) is a Catholic priest, author, educator, licensed psychologist, retreat master and expert on psychological and spiritual wellness issues for Catholic priests. He has written/edited other books such as 'Slayer of the Soul: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church,' 'Letters to My Brothers: Words of Hope and Challenge for Priests,' 'The Joy of Priesthood,' 'Born of the Eucharist: A Spirituality for Priests,' etc.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, "This book offers a new way... The insights offered here are the hard lessons of many years of mistakes, costly mistakes... But the Church has no monopoly on such errors. These costly errors have been made by secular authorities and mental health professionals, too... Embedded in this work is a message of hope and, possibly, even a story of human greatness. We are learning. Things are changing. The word is getting out... there are many simple ideas in this book... But the real message calls for a change of heart." (Pg. xii-xiii)
He suggests, "Since parental support is considered to be an important factor in the fostering of religious vocations, there is a strong likelihood that incidents of clergy sexual misconduct will have a negative effect on future vocations." (Pg. 31) He adds, "The phenomenon of clergy-child sexual abuse appears to be damaging seriously the credibility of the Catholic Church to police its own ranks." (Pg. 38) He also notes, "Support for mandatory celibacy, which is already low, if eroded even further by incidents of priests being involved in child sexual abuse." (Pg. 40)
He states, "In the ten years in which Saint Luke institute has treated over three hundred Catholic priests who have sexually molested minors, they currently know of only two who have relapsed into child sexual abuse. While it is likely there are others whom they do not know about, their experience to date suggests that it is improbable that a priest will relapse if he had done well in residential treatment, complied with their five-year aftercare program, and has engaged in ongoing supervision and outpatient treatment. It should be noted that published data on recidivism rates are not uniformly positive... While there are reasons to be optimistic about the results of newer treatments, some caution and a healthy skepticism are not unwarranted." (Pg. 90)
He says in the last chapter, "The Church has been accused of engaging in an organized conspiracy of shielding priest-perpetrators of child sexual abuse from the law. I have not seen evidence of an organized conspiracy. My experience is that most bishops have been deeply concerned with instances of child sexual abuse and have responded as well as they were able. Despite this good will, however, many shocking errors have been made." (Pg. 115)
He contends, "my clinical experience suggests that approximately 2 to 7 percent of Catholic clergy are sexually involved with minors at some point in their priestly lives. While this is a terrible reality, these men are still a small minority of the priesthood." (Pg. 117)
While Fr. Rossetti's somewhat "hopeful" view is not shared by some others, this book will be of definite interest to anyone studying this issue.
July 20, 2014
With the all the compassionate and hopeful views expressed in this book - for the priestly perpetrators of sexual abuse - one could easily gloss over the many, many ghastly organized cover-ups that Fr. Rosetti declines to acknowledge. (Read The Trial of Pope Benedict for more data on this.)
Until this aspect is truly analyzed, the 'cures' for pedophile priests are only temporary and topical.
Eleanor Cowan, author of : A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer
Until this aspect is truly analyzed, the 'cures' for pedophile priests are only temporary and topical.
Eleanor Cowan, author of : A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews