Clerical Sexual Abuse by Jo-Renee Formicola

in the 1980s, when individual victims began trying to hold their abusers to account, the movement has coalesced into organized groups.

Since the earliest high-profile cases in the U.S. If the church is put in a position where it has to defend itself, in the court of law or the court of public opinion, it's going to be quite significant.' (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI.) And even if it doesn't, it's an important move forward in raising awareness. 'If decides to hear this case, it sets a new bar. 'This is a further escalation of cases that have been going on for some time,' says Jo-Renee Formicola, a professor of political science at New Jersey's Seton Hall University, who studies the Vatican's legal travails.

13 that they would ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try the Pope on charges of crimes against humanity, the Vatican was quick to dismiss the petition as a 'ludicrous publicity stunt.' After all, prosecutors would have to prove that Pope Benedict XVI, in allegedly neglecting to address pervasive sex abuse in the Catholic Church, belongs in the company of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia's Charles Taylor and the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.Īnd yet, while few experts give the case much of a chance of success or even believe it will make it before the judge the fact that it's even up for discussion is testament to the success that victims groups have had in bringing their cause against the church before the law. Follow a group of victims of pedophile priests announced on Sept.

Clerical Sexual Abuse by Jo-Renee Formicola