Father Thomas Berg, professor of moral theology and vice-rector of St Joseph’s Seminary in New York, has published a book very relevant to our times. Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics (Gracewing £12.99) addresses the wounds caused by abuse and the clericalism that lies behind it. If clericalism is the pursuit of priestly power over lay people, abuse, particularly sexual abuse is, the author affirms, “one of the most heinous forms” of it.
Berg’s book was written before the current scandals to beset the Church, that of same-sex abuse of seminarians and other young men by older members of the hierarchy, but after the revelations of paedophile priests unearthed by the Boston Globe in 2002. This does not alter the author’s essential thesis: whether children or young adults, people experience real and lasting wounds at the hands of clerics that will never heal unless addressed in the right way. If this sounds simplistic, the book isn’t; it is a thoughtful, Christ-centred reflection on what it is like to suffer abuse and how to find authentic healing from it.
