Madison author: Sex abuse costs changed everything for Catholic Church

UNITED STATES
MyCentralJersey.com

Lorraine Ash, @LorraineVAsh January 24, 2015

MADISON – When the Catholic sexual abuse scandals of the last 15 years entered American courtrooms, a kind of showdown was at play: canon law versus civil law. It got the attention of Jo Renee Formicola, a political science professor at Seton Hall University.

After 10 years of researching legal reports, church documents, newspaper accounts, and personal stories, the Madison resident penned her ninth book—”Clerical Sexual Abuse: How the Crisis Changed US Catholic Church-State Relations” (Palgrave Macmillan, $105), released last November.

“I didn’t want to write an angry book,” said Formicola, who specializes in church/state relations.

“I also didn’t set out to write a book that was going to come down on all clergymen,” she added. “I do teach with a lot of very kind, caring, compassionate priests, and I see what this issue has done to them.”

The result is an objective, behind-the-scenes account written for a mass audience. On the other hand, “Clerical Sexual Abuse,” lauded as “scrupulously fair” by the author’s peers, is published by an academic press and priced accordingly.

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