A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church

Frank Bruni, Elinor Burkett

HarperCollins, Jun 4, 2002 - Religion - 336 pages

The relentless crescendo of revelations of sexual abuse in the nation's Catholic churches has rocked the nation. Just how widespread is child sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy? And why hasn't the Catholic church done more to stop it?

In A Gospel of Shame, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalists Elinor Burkett and Frank Bruni provide the answers to these questions and more. The answers, however, turn out to be infuriating and heartbreaking, difficult to accept but impossible to dismiss. The authors thoroughly document dozens of cases across the country and reveal how this heinous abuse of trust has been tacitly sanctioned by the Church's silence.

About the author

Frank Bruni, a reporter in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, now writes full-time for the Times Sunday magazine. For his previous work on other subjects, he was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing and a winner of the Polk Award for Metropolitan Reporting. He has appeared on ABC-TV's Nightline and other programs to talk about the Bush campaign and presidency.

Elinor Burkett has worked as a newspaper reporter, university professor, and magazine writer. A Pulitzer Prize—nominated journalist and the author of eight previous books, she divides her time between the Catskill Mountains of New York and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church
• Authors: Frank Bruni, Elinor Burkett
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2002
• ISBN: 0060522321, 9780060522322
• Length: 336 pages
• Subjects: Religion / Christianity / Catholic; Religion / General