Introduction

This introduction presents an over view of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on three general types of clergy deviance for examples: sexual violation, economic exploitation, and excessive authoritarian control of congregants and parishioners. Clergy malfeasance is a special type of elite deviance, from the Latin meaning bad or evil actions, committed by religious leaders. Clergy malfeasance, thus, covers the gamut of deviance-crime levels, in large part because the religious institution inherently provides a wide array of opportunities for deviance, and no other hierarchical institution is so trusted by average members thus rendering them emotionally and spiritually vulnerable in criminogenic fashion. During the numerous lawsuit proceedings, Cardinal Law was deposed for two days by attorneys representing dozens of clients alleging to have been victims of priestly sexual misconduct.