Generativity and the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops' responses to priests' sexual abuse of minors.
In this article, Erik Erikson's and subsequent researchers' ideas on generativity are applied to "the clerical abuse crisis," in which 111 U.S. Roman Catholic bishops protected priests rather than safeguard children. The goal was to discover what psychological dispositions led bishops to act in the manner they did. A case is made that pre-existing tendencies coupled with an all-male, celibate environment and formation indoctrination led to deficits in psychological development, moral judgment and leadership capacity, revealing an Episcopal subculture characterized by pseudo-speciation and authoritism.
McGrath-Merkle
Clare
C
Department of Theology and Religious Studies (spirituality track), The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA. cmm4@verizon.net
D001318:Authoritarianism; D002410:Catholicism; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002977:Clergy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology