Reckoning: The Catholic Church and Child Sexual Abuse (PDF)

AUD$21.95

Chris McGillion is former religious affairs editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. He is the editor of A Long Way From Rome: Why the Australian Catholic Church is in crisis (Allen & Unwin, 2003) and co-author of Our Fathers: What Australian Catholic priests really think about their lives and their church (John Garratt, 2011). He teaches journalism at Charles Sturt University.

Damian Grace is an Honorary Associate in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is co-author of Business Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, fifth edition 2013).

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Description

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has focused more public attention on the Catholic Church in Australia than on any other organisation subject to this investigation. It is a cathartic moment for the Church. Public disillusionment and a deep distrust within the community about the way the Church has handled clerical sexual abuse cases could prove more damaging – or more transformative – than any findings from the Commission itself. This book examines the public discussion around the child abuse issue and its construction as a problem of Catholicism. It considers what the Australian Catholic response to the greatest crisis in its history will mean in the long term for: • the Australian Church’s credibility, • the reputation of its schools, hospitals and welfare organizations, • and for its future cultural and political influence.