Religious

This is the category that prompted me to start thinking an online resource library is a good idea. There are two scenarios that led me to believe there is a need for such a library. First, there is the adult survivor who was abused decades ago, and now decides it’s time to come forward. You deserve solid information to understand what happened to you and how to find your way out of the labyrinth that is the internal struggle with child sex abuse. These materials are for you.

Second, there are the families where a child discloses that they have been abused. The shock is difficult to absorb, and parents and the child (anyone under age 18) immediately seek knowledge and wisdom. So do siblings, by the way. There are so many who have taken this path before, it is only humane to gather resources here for you to get some early understanding without the pain and triggering that can arise with googling this topic. These materials are for you.

They are also for anyone who wants to understand the basics of child sex abuse.

This section of the portal focuses on the big picture. Some of them are classics like Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score while others are new like The Gift of Forgiveness. Each one makes a distinctive contribution to understanding child sex abuse for survivors, their families and friends, and those who work with children. These materials not only can be helpful in one’s journey of healing, but also to assist anyone working with children who wants to understand it. They are valuable for understanding and prevention.

Everyone has their own best way to learn, which is why we have included suggested reading and viewing: books and articles, documentaries and videos, and online resources.

Here’s to enlightenment and healing!

— Prof. Marci Hamilton, Founder/CEO of CHILD USA

Books

Our selected books are typically available in public and/or university libraries.

Abuse in the Jewish Community

by Michael J. Salomon

Psychologist Michael Salamon offers definitions of abuse and describes signs that should indicate to parents, teachers, and school officials that abuse might be occurring.

Act of Faith

by Stephen Rubino

This book draws the reader into an unflinching account of the still emerging sexual abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic Church and its impact on the survivors and their families across America.

Bad Pastors: Clergy Misconduct in Modern America

edited by Anson Shupe, William Stacey, and Susan Darnell

This book investigates the corrupt activity of a myriad of clergy members.

Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church

by the Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe

Written by the reporters who broke the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer prize-winning Spotlight series into the cover up of clergy sex abuse in the Boston Archdiocese.

Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs

In this searing memoir of survival, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it.

Cardinal Mahoney

by Robert Blair Kaiser

The plot of this realistic fiction novel involves the kidnapping and subsequent trial of an American Bishop, who helps develop new practices within the Catholic church.

The Case of the Pope

by Geoffrey Robertson

This book details the secret legal system within the Catholic Church that has contributed to the Vatican’s failures with respect to clergy sex abuse.

Catholic Boy Blues

by Norbert Krapf

This story, written from the perspective of a survivor, provides both encouragement for victims and information for friends and family on how they can support loved ones in their long-term recovery.

Church of Lies

by Flora Jessop and Paul T. Brown

This book tells a dramatic true story of how Jessop ultimately escaped and has been fighting against frustrating obstacles with hard fought successes in rescuing women and children from the FLDS.

Clergy Sexual Abuse: Bibliography of Selected Sources Related to Clergy Sexual Abuse

by Thomas P. Doyle

Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting From New Religions

by Janet Liebman Jacobs

This book examines why individuals joined and left various religious movements or cults.

Escape

by Carolyn Jessop

The author describes her upbringing in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous cult that has routinely married girls to older men, and what it took for her to leave.

Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs

by Steven Hassan

This book provides a modern approach to “undue influence” in a post-9/11 world.

God vs. the Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty

by Marci Hamilton

This book makes the case for the law to apply to religious actors to prevent harm to others, including a full chapter on children.

Holding the Bishops Accountable

by Timothy Lytton

It turns out that a major reason we know as much as we do about sex abuse in the Catholic church as a result of civil lawsuits.

Hush

by Judy Brown

The author of this searing and revealing novel about sex abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, Judy Brown, originally wrote the book under a pseudonym, Eishes Chayel. She came forward for the first time in the online resource below.

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

by Martha Beck

A Harvard-educated sociologist and therapist tells the story of her recovered memories about ritualistic sexual abuse by her father, the noted Mormon scholar, Hugh Nibley.

Lost Boy: The Trust Story of One Man’s Exile from a Polygamist Cult and His Brave Journey to Reclaim His Life

by Brent W. Jeff

This book reveals both the terror and the love he experienced growing up on his prophet’s compound.

Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal

by Michael D’Antonio

Investigative reporter Michael D’Antonio delves into the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandals.

The Murder of Innocence: The Truth about Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church

by Sam Unglo

Michael Unglo’s story helps us to understand how parents, members of society, and child abuse advocates can make the world safer for the most vulnerable among us.

Not Without My Sister

by Kristina, Celeste, & Juliana Buhring

The Children of God, a California-based cult that became a sex cult, has been profiled in Rolling Stone and elsewhere.

The Oxford Handbook of Children and the Law

by James C. Dwyer

A collection of essays by leading experts on topics related to children’s rights and protection.

Predatory Priests, Silenced Victims

edited by Mary Gail Frawley-O'dea and Virginia Goldner

This collection of articles provides a sober and sobering analysis of the interlacing historical, doctrinal, and psychological issues that came together in the sexual abuse scandal.

Render Unto Rome

by Jason Berry

Award-winning investigative journalist, Jason Berry, delves into the system of top-down secrecy that characterized Pope John Paul II’s papacy.

Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes

by Thomas P. Doyle and Richard Sipe

This book documents and analyzes the long history of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

Sexual Abuse, Shonda, and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities

by Michael Lesher and Dane S. Claussen

This book examines different instances of systematic cover-ups of child sexual abuse in Orthodox Jewish communities.

The Silence We Keep

by Karol Jackowski

This book is about clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. It is insightful and takes a humane perspective from a position of faith.

Tears of the Silenced: An Amish True Crime Memoir of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Brutal Betrayal, and Ultimate Survival

by Misty Griffin

A gripping story that takes you on the journey of a child abuse and sexual assault survivor turned activist and her experience within the Amish community.

Triumph: Life After the Cult - A Survivor’s Lessons

by Carolyn Jessop

This books discusses about the inspiring account of Jessop’s journey after leaving the FLDS.

Vows of Silence

by Jason Berry

This book discusses the evasions and deceit that occurred in Pope John Paul II’s papacy.

Wolves Within the Fold: Religious Leadership and Abuses of Power

edited by Anson Shupe

A collection of articles exploring religious leaders’ abuse of authority and the victimization their followers.

Articles

Documentaries & Videos

Online Resources

Child Abuse in Institutional Settings: What is Next by Marci Hamilton

- - Prof. Hamilton delivered the annual McElroy Lecture at Detroit Mercy Law School, where the local bishop demanded that her lecture be cancelled. It was not, and this is the result, a discussion of the taboos surrounding discourse on child sexual abuse and the potential impact their crumbling has on our society and legal system.

The Grooming Of Children For Sexual Abuse In Religious Settings: Unique Characteristics And Select Case Studies by Susan Raine and Stephen A. Kent

- - Covers many of the unique features of religion and religious belief that contribute to an extraordinarily powerful grooming process.

Lev Tahor search warrant documents allege abuse, underage marriage, imprisonment by Tim Alamenciak

- - The article reports on the allegations against the Lev Tahor Jewish community including allegations of forced child marriage, child imprisonment and physical abuse.

The “Licentiousness” in Religious Organizations and Why It Is Not Protected Under Religious Liberty Constitutional Provisions, 18 Wm. and Mary Bill Rts. J. 953 (2010) by Marci Hamilton

- - This article discusses the attitudes of the founders of the United States and the Framers of the Constitution on the limits of religious liberty and explains why religious liberty does not protect religious actors and institutions from the laws against sex abuse and assault.

The Rules Against Scandal and What They Mean for the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses, 69 Md. L. Rev. 115 (2009) by Marci Hamilton

- - Numerous religious organizations have similar rules against the disclosure of bad acts by clergy to the outside world. These rules have been instrumental in fomenting the secrecy that has surrounded child sex abuse.

Secrecy and the Underpinnings of Cycles of Child Sex Abuse in Religious Organizations, chapter in Fundamentalism, Politics and the Law by Marci Hamilton

- - This chapter discusses secrecy in fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist religious institutions and how it has encouraged a culture that permits child sex abuse.

Secrets and Lies by Linda Stasi

- - This article discusses child abuse at New York’s Yeshiva University High School for Boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

A Secret Jehovah’s Witnesses Database of Child Abuse by Douglas Quenqua

- - A former Jehovah’s Witness is using stolen documents to expose allegations that the religion has kept hidden for decades.

Sexual Abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community: A Literature Review by Weisrose et al.

- - This article presents meta-analyses on existing literature researching sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish Community (OJC)

Study finds widespread history of sexual abuse among formerly Orthodox by Sam Sokol

- - This article discusses child sex abuse in the Orthodox church.

The Ultra-Orthodox Community’s Sex Abuse Crisis Has Finally Reached a Tipping Point by Hella Winston

- - This article discusses the possible exposure of one of the most secretive and isolated subcultures in the United States, the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, thanks to the Child Victims Act in New York.

The Waterloo for the So-Called Church Autonomy Theory: Widespread Clergy Abuse and Institutional Cover-Up, 29 Cardozo L. Rev. 225 (2007) by Marci Hamilton

- - This law review article lays out why religious institutions cannot be autonomous from the law, and in particular, with respect to the laws against child sex abuse.

Woman Sues Mormon Church for Reporting Her Husband’s Sexual Abuse Confession by Sanya Mansoor

- - This Time news article features the controversial story about a woman suing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for breaking their doctrine of confidentiality by revealing her husband’s sexual misconduct with their underage daughter.

Young Boy From ‘Jewish Taliban’ Reveals Physical, Sexual Abuse: ‘Hell Is Real, I Live There’ by Allison Kaplan Sommer

- - This article discusses child sex abuse within Lev Tahor in Mexico.

A Church in Crisis

- - This 56-minute documentary reflects on the recent 2018 reports of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and what these reports mean for the future of the Church.

Child Brides That Escaped the Sexual Abuse of Polygamist Cult FLDS

- - In this 16-minute documentary, VICE travels to Short Creek, an established community of FLDS, to meet with some of the young women who escaped from the polygamist cult and who have recently returned to the town to try to rebuild a new life there.

Code of Silence – Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community

- - This 56-minute documentary follows the story of a formerly Orthodox Jewish man who was abused by an Orthodox Jewish security guard as a child and the cover-up in the community that ensued as he attempted to find justice.

Dark Secret

- - This 1-hour documentary tells the story of child sex abuse by 35 Catholic clergymen in Philadelphia and its cover-up.

Decalogue Society of Lawyers Program (November 2015)

- - Presentations on child sex abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community. Presentations by Prefessor Resnicoff, Rena Gopin Wolf, Dr. Michael Salamon, Rabbi Yosef Blau, Det. Charles Hollendomer, and Sharon Kanter

Deliver us from Evil

- - This 2-hour documentary film chronicles the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady and his abuse of 25 children in Northern California.

The Keepers

- - This 7-episode documentary series explores the murder of a nun, Catherine Cesnick, who uncovered rampant sexual abuse by a priest who taught at the same high school.

The 2^nd National Jewish League for the Prevention of Child Abuse

- - Presentations by Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, Rachel Zimmerman, Barbara Blane, and Judy Brown.

A Peloton of One

- - This 1-hour 40-minute documentary highlights a man’s determination to ride across the United States in protest of clergical child abuse.

Prophet’s Prey

- - Filmmaker Amy Berg sheds light on the sexual, financial and spiritual abuses heaped upon members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by their former leader, Warren Jeffs.

Unforgivable

- - This 26-minute documentary centers on the stories of those who endured child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

The Witnesses

- - The first 2 episodes of this documentary series covers a reporter’s efforts to expose child sex abuse and extensive cover-up efforts among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are members of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.