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Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion. Volume 16 (2025)
From Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church
Series: - Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, Volume: 16
The volume "From Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church" contributes to the sociology of religion by examining how individual cases of clerical sexual abuse escalate (or not) into scandals that challenge religious authority and reshape institutional life. It explores how the strategies of public mobilisation and media responses encourage collective reflection and action to ensure accountability and societal change. Through case studies from Argentina, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands, and USA, this volume explores Church responses, believersâ reactions, and the shifting dynamics of trust and legitimacy. It highlights how these developments affect religious affiliation, moral credibility, and the public role of the Church, offering new perspectives on the evolving relationship between religion, society, and scandal in contemporary contexts.
Céline Béraud is Professor of Sociology at the Ãcole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS, Paris) and a member of CéSor (Centre dâétudes en sciences sociales des religions). She has published Une religion parmi dâautres. Le catholicisme en prison et à lâhôpital (PUF 2025), Le catholicisme français à lâépreuve des scandales sexuels (Seuil 2021), and La bataille du genre. Du mariage pour tous à la PMA (Fayard 2021).
Giuseppe Giordan, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology at the University of Padova. He coordinates the International Joint PhD in Religion, Culture and Public Life. He has recently co-authored A Sociology of Religious Freedom (with O. Breskaya and J. T. Richardson, Oxford University Press 2024) and co-edited the volume Religious Freedom: Social-Scientific Approaches (with O. Breskaya and R. Finke, Brill 2021).
Giuseppe Giordan, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology at the University of Padova. He coordinates the International Joint PhD in Religion, Culture and Public Life. He has recently co-authored A Sociology of Religious Freedom (with O. Breskaya and J. T. Richardson, Oxford University Press 2024) and co-edited the volume Religious Freedom: Social-Scientific Approaches (with O. Breskaya and R. Finke, Brill 2021).
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
âFrom Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. An Introduction
âCéline Béraud and Giuseppe Giordan
1 Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church in France: Contribution to the Sociology of a Scandal
âPhilippe Portier
2 From âClergy Sexual Abuseâ to a More Comprehensive Concept of Abuse in the Catholic Church: Major Cultural and Social Shifts in the USA
âMassimo Faggioli
3 Clerical Child Sexual Abuse Cases in Catholicism: Centering the Role of the Vatican
âBrian Conway
4 Sexual Abuse in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church
âStefan Gärtner
5 The Sauvé Report: Whatâs Next? Anatomy of the French Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal
âCéline Béraud
6 Missing Incidents and Masking Scandals: How Swiss Cheese Organization and Neutralization Techniques Help Religious Orders Blunt the Effects of Clergy Sexual Abuse
âRebecca K. Murray, Heather Fryer and Julia Feder
7 âIt Is the Abuses That Made Me Clickâ: Formal Disaffiliation as Mobilization against the Catholic Church
âJulia MartÃnez-Ariño
8 From Cases to Scandals? Media Representations of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy
âStefano Sbalchiero, Giuseppe Giordan and Piermarco Aroldi
9 An Aborted Scandal? Denunciatory Discourse and Media Marginalization of Sexually Abused Nuns in France
âClémence Douteau
10 A (Non)Disruptive Scandal? The Fragmented Societalization of the Problem of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy
âMarco Guglielmi
11 Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church in Croatia: Cases but Not (Yet?) Scandals
âNikolina Hazdovac BajiÄ, SiniÅ¡a ZrinÅ¡Äak and Dinka MarinoviÄ Jerolimov
12 Sacred Eroticism within the Catholic Church: the Philippe Family, Jean Vanier, and Their Secret Society
âMassimo Introvigne
13 The Catholic Church and the Scandal of Indigenous Unmarked Graves: a Catalyst of Social, Political and Historical Tensions towards Catholicism in Canada
âE.-Martin Meunier and Sabrina Di Matteo
14 Clerical Offenders as Family Friends: a Pilot Study of Case-to-Scandal Dynamics in Czechia Using Open-Source Data
âMichal Opatrný
15 Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland: the Role of Media and Cinema
âMagdalena Ratajczak
Index
Notes on Contributors
âFrom Cases to Scandals: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church. An Introduction
âCéline Béraud and Giuseppe Giordan
1 Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church in France: Contribution to the Sociology of a Scandal
âPhilippe Portier
2 From âClergy Sexual Abuseâ to a More Comprehensive Concept of Abuse in the Catholic Church: Major Cultural and Social Shifts in the USA
âMassimo Faggioli
3 Clerical Child Sexual Abuse Cases in Catholicism: Centering the Role of the Vatican
âBrian Conway
4 Sexual Abuse in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church
âStefan Gärtner
5 The Sauvé Report: Whatâs Next? Anatomy of the French Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal
âCéline Béraud
6 Missing Incidents and Masking Scandals: How Swiss Cheese Organization and Neutralization Techniques Help Religious Orders Blunt the Effects of Clergy Sexual Abuse
âRebecca K. Murray, Heather Fryer and Julia Feder
7 âIt Is the Abuses That Made Me Clickâ: Formal Disaffiliation as Mobilization against the Catholic Church
âJulia MartÃnez-Ariño
8 From Cases to Scandals? Media Representations of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy
âStefano Sbalchiero, Giuseppe Giordan and Piermarco Aroldi
9 An Aborted Scandal? Denunciatory Discourse and Media Marginalization of Sexually Abused Nuns in France
âClémence Douteau
10 A (Non)Disruptive Scandal? The Fragmented Societalization of the Problem of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy
âMarco Guglielmi
11 Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church in Croatia: Cases but Not (Yet?) Scandals
âNikolina Hazdovac BajiÄ, SiniÅ¡a ZrinÅ¡Äak and Dinka MarinoviÄ Jerolimov
12 Sacred Eroticism within the Catholic Church: the Philippe Family, Jean Vanier, and Their Secret Society
âMassimo Introvigne
13 The Catholic Church and the Scandal of Indigenous Unmarked Graves: a Catalyst of Social, Political and Historical Tensions towards Catholicism in Canada
âE.-Martin Meunier and Sabrina Di Matteo
14 Clerical Offenders as Family Friends: a Pilot Study of Case-to-Scandal Dynamics in Czechia Using Open-Source Data
âMichal Opatrný
15 Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland: the Role of Media and Cinema
âMagdalena Ratajczak
Index
This volume will appeal to specialists, graduate and post-graduate students, and academics in social sciences and humanities interested in how clerical abuse scandals in the Catholic Church prompt public mobilisation, reshape religious authority, and drive social, political, and institutional change in contemporary societies.