EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University religious studies professor Robert Orsi is available for comment on the grand jury report revealing more than 300 priests from Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania have been accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children.
Quote from Professor Orsi
“The Grand Jury report in Pennsylvania confirms in heartbreaking detail what we have known from other dioceses across the U.S. and the world for decades now, which is that Catholic authorities showed absolutely -- this must be emphasized: absolutely -- no concern for the victims of all ages of sexually predatory priests, while these same authorities protected, advanced and honored the abusers. The scale of the report indicates that clerical sexual malfeasance has been the Catholic normal, that the rape of children, young people, seminarians and women was taken as clerical privilege.”
Robert Orsi is a professor of religious studies and the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. He is leading scholar of American religious history and contemporary practice; American Catholicism in both historical and ethnographic perspective; and he is widely recognized also for his work on theory and method for the study of religion.
He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].
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