July 4, 2020: Book Review – Clerical Sexual Misconduct: An Interdisciplinary Analysis
“Clerical Sexual Misconduct: An Interdisciplinary Analysis,” edited by Jane F. Adolphe and Ronald J. Rychlak. Cluny Media (Providence, Rhode Island, 2020). 480 pp., $29.95.
While comprehensive and packed with scholarly footnotes, “Clerical Sexual Misconduct” offers an engrossing read, accessible to anyone who cares about cleansing the scourge of clerical sexual abuse from the church and in preventing its resurgence.
The analysis is unsparing and multifaceted but at the same time hopeful. The last section of the book looks at ways the Catholic Church can recover her teaching on human sexuality. It looks at the nature of manliness exemplified by Jesus Christ and at the examples set by the lives of saintly priests. It also advocates renewal of a Scripture-based morality that includes the Marian dimension and the power of the Holy Spirit to make living a holy, loving, chaste life possible.