Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church | 
 enlarge | Author: Leon J. Podles
Publisher: Crossland Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 269841
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 676
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 0979027993
Dewey Decimal Number: 261.83272
EAN: 9780979027994
ASIN: 0979027993
Publication Date: November 15, 2007
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Product Description
Sacrilege explores the deep roots of the Catholic ChurchOs sexual-abuse scandal, revealing its full depth and breadth. In horrifying yet necessary detail, former federal investigator Leon Podles surveys the full extent of the damage, showing how victims were failed by bishops, laity, therapists, police, courts, press, and even popes. Examining the history behind todayOs headlines, Dr. Podles reveals how centuries-old theological errors encouraged blind submission to hierarchy, by making obedience to authority the highest virtue. He also shines a light on the new theological errors, popularized since Vatican II, that glorify every type of sexual expression--including pedophilia. Sacrilege will prove an essential resource for all those concerned with the history and future of Catholicism.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 A Tragic Tale October 21, 2008
This is the first time I have ever written a review of a book that I have not been able to finish. But as a Catholic I found Sacrilege so painful to read that I only could get into it for 200 or so pages before I had to put it down. The repeated picture of a priest raising the Host, the body of Christ, in his hands during mass when those same hands may have been fondling the genitals of a 10 year old boy an hour before was too much for me to bear. As far as I can tell, the whole story of the disaster that befell the Catholic church is here. The careers of many of the deviant priests are examined in detail and reading about the coverups that allowed the suspect priests to continue functioning in pastoral work (and continuing to sodomize chldren) makes it seem almost inescapable to conclude that parts of the hierarchy not only tolerated chld abuse but may have perpetrated it themselves.Some of the stories are sensational beyond belief: A priest running a sex resort while working in a parish; a priest admiting to sodmizing over 150 children, laregly boys but also some girls, over a 20 year career; parents who reported child abuse to bishops being ignored and, in some cases being made to seem like pariahs in their parishes.
As I said, this is a painful story, an unbelievable story but it actually happened and the author documents it well. Perhaps too well because he overwrites mercilessly going in repeated details that could have been left at a paragraph or two. If you wish to understand the enormity of the priest scandal, this is probably as good a book as any since it seems so thorough if, at times, overwritten.
 excellent - highly recommended June 7, 2008
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
I want to congratulate Dr. Podles for a skillfully written, thoroughly annotated and meticulously edited volume which will serve as a model for investigative texts on any subject.
I am angry that there are dissidents promoting this as the work of a dissident. I believe Dr. Podles' motivation is the bitterness many of us have over the destruction of the church's credibility as a moral arbiter rather than a desire to turn the Catholic Church into a rococo version of the phony 'Metropolitan Community Church' which is the hope of many of the newspaper reporters who write on this topic. While he expresses disagreement with those who maintain that the use of traditional rubrics alone will be sufficient to prevent these scandals, the passages I read most gleefully were those in which he lambastes the likes of the National Catholic Reporter and the pathetic 'New Ways Ministry' for their continued applause for scumbags like Paul Shanley and Rembert Weakland.
My only disagreement is the inclusion of corrective proposals which are careful and measured (which is almost inevitable in a book so carefully crafted) - I say that the time for measured responses to this situation has passed. Their continued intransigence and smugness on these issues can lead me to no conclusion other than that Roger Mahony, George Niederauer, Robert Brom, John McCormack, William Levada, Theodore McCarrick, Harry Flynn, Bernard Law and Thomas O'Brien are SODOMITES who are PLEASED by the molestation of boys by priests as it fulfills their wish for general homosexual recruitment (a substantial percentage of boastful male "gays" and a colossal percentage of homosexual prostitutes had no inclinations toward homosexuality until their adolescent molestation began). The laity needs to rise up and tell any of these punks who still can get their fingers on their money that they will not get one plugged nickel for chanceries, cathedrals, schools or limos until they RESIGN.
(This must be going on in Mahony's lair to some degree as he is now aspiring to have a diocese made up entirely of illegal aliens who he thinks will not complain about him operating a homosexual bordello in a building with the word 'seminary' on its nameplate)
Thank you again Dr. Podles for your service to contemporary literature and your service to the faith.
The illness of the church May 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Leon Podles's work documents in quite detail the preditory aspect of these pedophile priests. The greater crime was the inefficiency, arrogance, and stupidity of the hierarchy in dealing with this sickness. Yet the hierarchy claim they are the pastors of the world - bringing the Word of God to humankind. The hypocrisy is incredible! Instead, they have crucified the victims they claim they are saving.
Horrific Read April 10, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
The author purports to have gathered his facts from public records so we assume the facts are more or less accurate. They reveal a ecclesiastical corruption of the deepest hue at all levels, from the Vatican to the parishoner. Page after page of incredulous inhumanity should, but has not, caused Catholics to rise up in horror, demanding change and punishment. Should be required reading in every parish.
 Sacrilege April 10, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Objective treatment of the subject. An abundance of information and analysis. Also, places the "priestly" scandal in the context of this national perversion.
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