Very respectful and sensitively written.
Assumes very little knowledge of Catholicism or the workings of the church and educates where necessary without being patronising.
Does not shy away from this complex topic but keeps a suitable distance from details.

I was really looking forward to this book but I quickly realized that it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I’ll start with what I thought this book would be: discussion of the sexual abuse as well as how it happened, who it happened to etc. what it actually is: a very thorough examination of what elements of the Catholic Church left such a wide opening for something like this to occur and how to properly understand, come to terms with and prevent future sexual abuse in the church. This book is definitely an important work of nonfiction and an opportunity to learn from this horrendous situation and how to support victims going forward, it just wasn’t quite the book I thought it would be. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the response of the church, the circumstances that led to sexual abuse or to learn more about the methodical investigation of this problem. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book!

There is a lot of detail here and it is carefully analysed and balanced. The author carefully keeps victim survivors at the forefront when considering the Catholic Church’s responses over time to accusations of abuse. A bit too much religious rhetoric for my liking, but other than that really interesting and well researched.

This was a difficult book to review; I am sure it was probably a difficult book to write as well. The impact on “The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal” has been significant for many Catholics, myself included; however, without a good understanding of what went wrong it is also difficult to move forward. This book makes a good attempt to fill in some of the details surrounding the Church’s lack of understanding, as well as its admitted inadequate response. Paresa begins with trying to establish the common terms and vocabulary needed to actually have a productive analysis and discussion. Then he moves into what he sees as the proximate, contextual and aggravating causes/factors … before jumping a little too soon into the break down in communications before returning what he sees as the causal factors that are common to society at large and aggravated by the size of the church bureaucracy. All relevant points that unfortunately give the start something of an apologetic/defensive tone. Added to this are some additional factors that are more unique to the catholic clergy … such as the “clericalism” and the nature of an organization with forgiveness as part the foundation. It is important to note here that while the author cites several statistics to support his conclusions, these numbers really just highlight correlations and not causation. This is especially true with his presumption that the higher ration of homosexual clergy and young male victims suggests an obvious solution where reducing one will reduce the other. While that may in fact be true the author doesn’t actually provide the underlying reason for that believe at it comes across a bit homophobic (especially when implying the failure of science to identify a specific genetic cause of homosexual orientation proved that such doesn’t exist … which should have been an obvious fallacy). The other factors seem to be spot on though … such as the shortage of priests (which increase pressure to keep what you have combined with inadequate supervision on junior and/or less mature clergy), the relative independence of the Bishops (and the idea of subsidiarity within the church), the cumbersome jurisprudence within the Church-State more focused on forgiveness and reform instead of justice.

Not satisfied with the Church’s response to date, the author then provides several [reasonable] recommendations on what the Church can and should do differently, most of which focuses on screening and formation along with a more open and cooperative relationship with civil authorities. Also examined is the impact of regulating celibacy on the priest shortage and what changing that could mean theologically (this was by far the most interesting part of the book for me). The author closes with a more in depth look at the due process and legal issues involved with prosecuting abuse within the Church as well as the ontological issues with removing a priest from the clerical state. Over all, this is a solid book that deals with the very human factors that went into making the abuse scandal a “wicked” problem for the faithful to deal with.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheCatholicSexualAbuseScandal #NetGalley

This outstanding book brings together all the many strings of the tangle of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, unraveling and analyzing them. laced with extensive quotes and over 425 citations, it's authoritative but very readable..

It's by far the most comprehensive, reasonable, and complete book on the crisis.

Dreadful. As a former Catholic who left not only because of the multitude of sexual abuse scandals and their decades (centuries?) long coverup, but also because of the eternal blame shuffling, I am having a difficult time reviewing this book with an open mind. The author covers several "reasons" why the scandals happened and concedes that almost all of the situations were grievously mishandled, but also repeatedly places the blame on "the gays", citing that the majority of the crimes were committed against young boys, therefore, the homosexual priests are the guilty ones. Yes, most of the sexual abuse crimes were against boys, and perhaps there are far more homosexual priests than were known, but their sexuality is not a sin, and I will not believe it encourages these crimes. The Catholic Church is rife with scandal, abuse, neglect, and horrifying crimes and has been since the very beginning of its existence. I have no faith whatsoever that it will change, no matter where they place the blame next.