The Unmaking of a Pedophilic Priest: Transnational Clerical Sexual Abuse in Guatemala

• Published in: Comparative studies in society and history 2020-10, Vol.62 (4), p.745-769
• Main Author: O'Neill, Kevin Lewis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Catholic churches; Catholicism; Catholics; Clergy; Confession; Litigation; Mysticism; Ontology; Pastoralism; Pedophilia; Psychiatrists; Psychologists; Retirement; Rituals; Rural areas; Sex crimes; Sexual abuse; Social Lives of Categories; Subjectivity; Theological schools; Transnationalism
• ISSN: 0010-4175; 1475-2999
• DOI: 10.1017/S0010417520000274

Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Latin America became something of a dumping ground for U.S. priests suspected of sexual abuse, with north-to-south clerical transfers sending predatory priests to countries where pedophilia did not exist in any kind of ontological sense. This article, in response, engages the case of Father David Roney of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. After a career of accusations and payouts, with Roney entering and exiting Church-mandated therapy programs, Bishop Raymond Lucker retired this notoriously predatory priest to rural Guatemala in 1994. By placing Roney beyond the reach of psychiatrists, psychologists, and spiritual directors, the Roman Catholic Church leveraged a psychological and juridical difference between two geographical settings in order to render the pedophilia of this priest effectively non-existent, thereby insulating itself from further reputational damage and additional litigation. Given that the Roman Catholic Church has long been an empirical point of reference for studies of subject formation—from pastoralism and mysticism to ritual and the confession—this article adds that the Church also provides ample evidence of an opposite process: of unmaking people.