Allegations of sex crimes by members of the Roman Catholic clergy and orders first began receiving media coverage in the 1980s, but have seen renewed attention throughout the 2000s, especially in the United States. Drawing from a Yale University conference entitled “Sex Abuse and the Study of Religion,” this discussion seeks to interpret the sex abuse scandal as a subject for the study of religion.

Researchers and scholars must acknowledge the murky methodological role they play in the hermeneutics of these scandals, but as series editor Kathryn Lofton notes, “There will be no true healing, no true reconciliation, and no true justice, absent the practice of humane interpretation.”