Marie Keenan

Over the last few decades, the issue of historical/ non-recent institutional abuses has resonated in a range of Western states and churches. Despite the recent proliferation of 'justice' responses to such abuses including prosecutions and civil litigation, inquiries, redress and apologies, it is a subject which is insufficiently understood in the literature. Set against the complexities of the legal, historical, cultural, and political realities of addressing non-recent institutional abuses, Transforming Justice Responses to Non-Recent Institutional Abuses critically examines these justice responses across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Bringing together the voices of victim/survivors of non-recent institutional abuses with legal actors, academics, media professionals, and church and state actors on their experiences of justice processes, this book reframes discourses on accountability and responsibility and considers how to improve justice processes at the level of praxis and increase engagement between victim/survivors and institutional actors. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature related to restorative, transitional, and transformative justice and analysis of primary research, the book advances analysis of the role of innovative justice in this space and a new approach to justice which bridges the accountability gap between seeking and achieving justice for non-recent institutional abuses while improving outcomes for victims and survivors. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

Concerned by the high attrition rates for sexual crime and the secondary victimization experienced by victims during their participation in the criminal justice system, this book analyses the extent to which restorative justice can address the justice gap that exists in current justice provision. Building on clinical experience and earlier research on sexual crime the authors engage with the complex dynamics and traumatic impact of sexual crime as a critical starting point for their research and examine whether restorative justice can contribute to a more enhanced justice response. The book presents extensive new data on restorative justice as applied in sexual violence cases across the globe. It engages with feminist concerns regarding the traumatic impact of sexual violence and the potential for re-traumatisation; the power imbalances that characterise these offences and the potential for re-victimisation; the potential for coercion of the victim to participate in the process; the potential for manipulation of restorative justice by the offender; and the potential that restorative justice could lead to the reprivatisation of sexual crime and ultimately to its decriminalisation. Having examined these topics in detail, the book concludes there is an important role for restorative justice in addressing the justice gap that exists after sexual crime and offers guidance on how this can be achieved.

A meticulously researched inside look at child sexual abuse by clergy, this exhaustive, hard-hitting analysis weaves together interviews with abusive priests and church historical and administrative details to propose a new way of thinking about clerical sexual offenders. Linking the personal and the institutional, researcher and therapist Marie Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not exclusively in individual pathology, but also within larger systemic factors, such as the very institution of priesthood itself, the Catholic take on sexuality, clerical culture, power relations, governance structures of the Catholic Church, the process of formation for priesthood and religious life, and the complex manner in which these factors coalesce to create serious institutional risks for boundary violations, including child sexual abuse. Keenan draws on the priests' own words not to excuse their horrific crimes, but to offer the first in-depth account of a tragic, multi-faceted phenomenon. What emerges is a troubling portrait of a Church in crisis and a series of recommendations that call for nothing less than a new ecclesiology and a new, more critical theology. Only through radical institutional reform, Keenan argues, can a more representative and accountable Church emerge. Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church is a unique reference for scholars of the Church and therapists who work with both victims and offenders, as well as a forward-thinking blueprint for reform.

A meticulously researched inside look at child sexual abuse by clergy, this exhaustive, hard-hitting analysis weaves together interviews with abusive priests and church historical and administrative details to propose a new way of thinking about clerical sexual offenders. Linking the personal and the institutional, researcher and therapist Marie Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not exclusively in individual pathology, but also within larger systemic factors, such as the very institution of priesthood itself, the Catholic take on sexuality, clerical culture, power relations, governance structures of the Catholic Church, the process of formation for priesthood and religious life, and the complex manner in which these factors coalesce to create serious institutional risks for boundary violations, including child sexual abuse. Keenan draws on the priests' own words not to excuse their horrific crimes, but to offer the first in-depth account of a tragic, multi-faceted phenomenon. What emerges is a troubling portrait of a Church in crisis and a series of recommendations that call for nothing less than a new ecclesiology and a new, more critical theology. Only through radical institutional reform, Keenan argues, can a more representative and accountable Church emerge. Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church is a unique reference for scholars of the Church and therapists who work with both victims and offenders, as well as a forward-thinking blueprint for reform.