Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Work of Redemption: Gestures toward a Theology of Accompaniment

This article argues that child abuse prevention efforts in the Catholic church need to be supplemented by a thorough communal approach to the healing of direct and indirect victims of clergy sexual abuse, and this amounts to a change in the culture of the church away from patterns of clericalism and narcissism in which both clerical and lay members participate, toward a victims-first approach marked by deep listening to the voices and insights of survivors themselves, new attention to the theology of redemption, an embrace of the principles of High Reliability Organizations, and the renewal of communal prayer through the liturgy of the mass as one liturgical pattern of accompaniment.