Accountability, Healing, and Trust: Interdisciplinary Reflections for Ministry in the Midst of the Catholic Sex Abuse Crisis

By carefully listening to the words and wisdom of survivors, this volume focuses on ways forward in the work of creating an atmosphere of accountability, healing, and trust in today’s church.

In March of 2022, practitioners of psychology, law, and theology, gathered at the University of Notre Dame for a major conference to explore practical strategies to increase accountability, promote healing, and rebuild trust in the life of the Catholic Church in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The essays in this volume share the fruits of those days spent reflecting on recent research on these challenging issues. The result is a hopeful resource in service to survivors and to those who minister with them through listening, giving voice, and bearing witness to the wounded body of Christ.

The challenges of addressing the range of problems caused by the abuse crisis are great, affecting the work of ministry in profound ways. From the training of future ministers--lay and ordained--to the exercise of the church’s various ministries in parishes, education and direct service, the abuse crisis calls out for a response to the questions posed by abuse survivors and those who accompany and hope to serve them. Organized around three themes--accountability, healing, and trust--the contributors to this volume probe the deepest understanding of the church’s mission and name the most significant divisions in the response to the sexual abuse crisis. By carefully listening to the words and wisdom of survivors, this volume focuses on ways forward and treats clergy, laypeople, scholars, and ministers as partners in the work of creating an atmosphere of accountability, healing, and trust in the post-abuse-revelation church.

Contributors include:
Melanie Susan Barrett
Kimberly Hope Belcher
Jennifer Beste
Julia Canonico
Peter Capretto
David A. Clairmont
Tristan Cooley
Anselma Dolcich-Ashley
Sarah Gallagher
Kevin Grove, CSC
Gerard J. McGlone, SJ
Marcus Mescher
Bruce Morrill, SJ
Stacey Noem
Ronald Patrick Raab, CSC
Hilary Jerome Scarsella
Kenneth W. Schmidt
Eric T. Styles
Patrick J. Wall
J.J. Wright

Kimberly Hope Belcher is associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, in liturgical studies. She uses sacramental and liturgical theology and ritual theory to study Christian worship. Her current research explores the potential of ritual for healing trauma and social crisis in pluralistic societies. Her related publications include ＂Remembering the Dead, Reconciling the Living: George Floyd and All Souls’ Day＂ (Stellenbosch Theological Journal, 2024), ＂Ritual Techniques in Affliction Rites and the Lutheran-Catholic ecumenical Liturgy of Lund, 2016＂ (Yearbook for Ritual and Liturgical Studies, 2022), and the guest edited issue ＂Sacramental and Liturgical Theology of Healing and Crisis Rites＂ of Religions (2022).

David A. Clairmont is associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Moral Struggle and Religious Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method (with William Schweiker, Wiley-Blackwell, 2020). His articles have appeared in the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.