Hierarchicalism

Abstract

For the past twenty years, clericalism has been a helpful concept to identify the problematic culture within the clergy that is sorely in need of reform. In fact, it has served to focus matters needing reform not only concerning the sexual abuse crisis but also a wide array of other matters. Still, though reformers insist that clericalism embraces the entire clergy, from priests to bishops, they inevitably singularly default to reform of the priesthood. This article insists that now, nearly forty years after the sexual abuse crisis first broke, we must redirect our focus primarily onto the father of clericalism, “hierarchicalism,” a much more distinctive, protected, and powerful culture that has generated many of the contemporary problems in the church that compromise her mission.