Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis
Author: Philip Jenkins
List Price: $17.95
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ISBN: 0195145976
Publisher: Oxford Press (April, 2001)
Sales Rank: 82,945
Average Customer Rating: 4 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Excellent Book on this Crisis
This is a non-Catholic scholar who makes the case that there is an objective anti-Catholic agenda at work behind the expolitation of the relatively few cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Pedophilia is a sociatal problem and about 3% of the members of organisations (Scout, community and other key groups in society) are pedophiles. In the Catholic church the percentage is .02% of priests.
In the current crisis there are about 200 cases in the current scandle (some going back 30 years), however the Christian Monitor reported that EVERY YEAR in the Protestant churches there are about 2000 cases of sexual scandle! Why don't we hear about this in the media?
Read this book and find out. . .
The media is losing its creditability in America. Its prejudice against the Catholic Church is at best unprofessional and at worse evil.
This book offers the balanced, thoughtful and unbiased evidence of the prejudice. You will be shocked and given new eyes with which to see the truth behind the endless waves of media trash.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Informative, objective, logical, well-written, a must have.
Priests and pedophilia is a subject not easily discussed without arousing deep emotional reactions. Phillip Jenkins, however, has taken an objective scholastic approach that backs each assertion with stong quotations and clear logical arguements. He shows how a national history of anti-catholicism, a sensationalistic-hungry mass media, a changing legal environnment, new definitions of 'sex-abuse', and a factional struggle for change within the Roman Church, all set the stage for what inevitably became the 'clergy-abuse crisis'. He offers much new insight and a good bibliography. I think at times however, he overestimates the power of the laity, and democracy; and underscores the 'Divine' origin and mission of the Roman Church. The book also lacked what I had hoped for by way of statistics. I would still recommend this book for anyone interested in catholic apologetics, or anyone just looking for a more scholarly diagnosis of the 'pedophile/priest crisis'.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Solid Social Science
Professor Jenkins contributes immeasurably to the current discussion of clergy sexual abuse by doing what every social scientist should. Jenkins steadfastly refuses to add to the volume of this shrill and partisan debate by offering conjectures or personal opinions. Instead, he calmly presents the data in a detached manner, and then draws his conclusions based solely on the data.Anyone with an interest in the current crisis would benefit from reading Professor Jenkins' sane, calm, and lucid analysis.
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