UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Tom Doyle is a Dominican priest who has been involved in the clergy sex abuse crisis since 1984. He has offered survivors and their families support and has served as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases. He has also done expert and consultant work with grand juries in the U.S., with the three investigative commissions in Ireland and with the Cornwall Commission in Canada.
The Catholic Labyrinth: Power, Apathy, and a Passion for Reform in the American Church, by Peter McDonough (Oxford University Press, USA July 15, 2013) 978-0199751181. Read review
Sexual abuse scandals, declining attendance, a meltdown in the number of priests and nuns, the closing of many parishes and parochial schools–all have shaken American Catholicism. Yet conservatives have increasingly dominated the church hierarchy.
In The Catholic Labyrinth, Peter McDonough tells a tale of multiple struggles that animate various groups–the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Voice of the Faithful, and the Leadership Roundtable chief among them–pushing to modernize the church. One contest pits reformers against those who back age-old standards of sexual behavior and gender roles. Another area of contention, involving efforts to maintain the church’s far-flung operations in education, social services, and healthcare, raises constitutional issues about the separation of church and state. Once a sidebar to this debate, the bishops’ campaign to control the terms of employment and access to contraceptives in church-sponsored ministries has fueled conflict further.
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