Priests on the prowl
Monster Talk Within the Discourse of Clergy Sexual Abuse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4372183 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brian J Clites (Case Western Reserve University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0048721x.2025.2538956 |
| OpenAlex | W4413227411 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 30 |
‘Monsters’ stalk the discourse of religion and sexual abuse. They have become ubiquitous in courtrooms, grand jury reports, news media, and our everyday lexicon. But a survivor-centered approach reveals that many Catholic victims actually describe clerical abusers in richly complex, human terms. This ethnographic observation prompts the author to interrogate society's heavy reliance on monsters. Why is clerical monstrosity such a durable and enduring scaffold? Which ideas, and whose interests, do these monsters serve? This essay explores the epistemologies that are mapped by these priestly monsters, foremost monstrosity's promise that sexual abuse can be quarantined from the sacred. A critical reading of monster talk reveals the precarity of that containment, however, suggesting instead that U.S. Catholic history is the ‘monstrous other’ lurking just beneath the surface of clergy sexual abuse
Art · Criminology · Literature · Monster · Poison control · Sexual abuse · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Medicine
Skin Shows
Our Vampires, Ourselves
Map is not Territory
The Interpretation of Cultures
Classical Literature and Posthumanism
Does Gender Matter?
Unthinking the Monster
Monster Culture (Seven Theses)
Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous
Imagining Religion
The year of living supernaturally
Soul Murder
Guru Sex
Deviations
Foucault's Monsters, the Abnormal Individual and the Challenge of English Law
Reproductive Abuse in the Context of Clergy Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church
The Sexual Economies of Clericalism
Toward a Universal Definition of Child Sexual Grooming
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |