ABSTRACT
In discussing some of the underlying causes of the Catholic scandal, James Martin draws on the work of the National Review Board, a group of lay people appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who researched the reasons for the crisis and reported their findings in early 2003. Prior to the early 1980s, when sexual abuse was identified as a serious problem in the wider culture, even educated men and women simply did not grasp the great prevalence of sexual abuse inside the family or outside of it. The potential financial losses threatened by lawsuits were accurately assessed as losses that would damage the great many social services provided by the Catholic Church: parishes, hospitals, schools, shelters. The process of laicization includes stripping a man of all clerical rights that were conferred on him at ordination. Some bishops were hampered by their inability to entertain the possibility that the scandal would generate dramatic changes in the Church.
