The Church's Sex-Abuse Crisis

What's Old, What's New, What's Needed—and Why

Peter Steinfels June 17, 2004 - 4:57am

There are scandals and then there are scandals. Most are ugly, absorbing, and quickly forgotten. A few change history. The current flood of revelations about Catholic priests sexually preying on minors and the failure of Catholic officials to expose these outrages is taking on the dimensions of a history-changing scandal.

Seasoned observers of Catholicism are straining—and failing—to find a comparable event against which to measure the...

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Topics: 
Sexual-abuse Crisis
Priesthood
Sexual-abuse Crisis
U.S. Catholicism

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About the Author

Peter Steinfels, co-founder of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture and a former editor of Commonweal, is the author of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

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