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

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.

Trust and Obey: Toward a New Theory of Punishment

An impartial observer reviewing the Anglo-American philosophical writings of recent decades on the question of the justification of punishment would very likely label the contest, thus far, a draw. Three major justifications have been put forward as principles constitutive of fairness in punishment, and none can be said to have routed its rivals.Some modern writers have written forcefully in defence of the rehabilitative justification of punishment — or, more precisely, the replacement of punishment with a system of judicially mandated therapy for criminals. This substitution, however, has been tellingly criticized as demeaning to offenders, violative of individuals' moral rights, and liable to abuse as a pretext for suppression of unpopular ideas. Others have sought to justify punishment on the basis of the societal need to deter crime. But deterrence seems at the same time too severe and too lenient a basis for punishment. Draconian penalties for minor offences and exemplary punishment of the innocent would meet the requirements of deterrence if they proved effective in preventing future crimes; yet offences whose nature or whose pattern of occurrence makes effective deterrence impossible should go unpunished, on this view.