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This essay considers how distortions of normativity figured in the church’s sexual abuse scandal. The focus falls in particular on how the social articulation of morality may go awry and on the ways this happened in the church. The essay reviews work by psychologist Marie Keenan, philosophers Herlinde Pauer-Studer and J. David Velleman, and theologian Norbert J. Rigali, SJ. Rigali draws attention to the role of traditional moral theology in shaping the moral perception of clergy. According to him, “The content, structure, and method of this sin-centered discipline…shaped the way in which the Christian moral life was understood in the Church.” His primary evidence for that thesis is the way the sexual abuse of children was perceived by clergy, in particular bishops, prior to 2002. As a rule, the victims fell out of the picture. Against that background, the essay submits that the roots of the scandal lie not in moral relativism, but in a moral blindness induced, ironically, by a distorted view of the moral life.
Bernard G. Prusak (Fri,) studied this question.