Caring for clergy offenders

Abstract

Sex offenders are viewed as the lepers in our society, and clergy sex offenders are considered to be among the worst. Let's be hon est here: it is not just by wider society. We priests are genuinely angry at the crimes of clergy offenders and we wonder if we're being untrue to our anger if we reach out to them. It is easier for us to avoid them altogether. But how much of our anger towards abusers is really more about us than about our concern for the vic tims - more about our own sense of having been betrayed? To be even more honest, has it not also to do with our own deep and mostly unexplored fears that there, but for the grace of God, go we? Are not these men reminders of the many compromises, fail ures and infidelities that have marked our own clawing back on the promises we made at our ordination?