The formation of discursive objects and the production of truths about sexual violence perpetrated by Catholic Clergy

Abstract

Over the years, sexuality has become an object of power within the Catholic religion through the production of knowledge codified in catechisms, canon-law codes, and papal encyclicals, thus capturing what can and cannot be said in each period. Since 2003, media reports of sexual abuse involving clergy have prompted investigations by independent commissions. Among them, the CIASE Report (France, 2020), the product of a multidisciplinary effort, assembled a heterogeneous analytical corpus, estimated that approximately 216,000 children were victimized, and proposed recommendations for prevention and reparation addressing the systemic effects of sexual abuse. Drawing on the archaeogenealogical method of Foucauldian Discourse Studies, we approach the CIASE Report as a discursive materiality that elucidates how discourse production is controlled and organized within a power–knowledge field. The study aimed to analyze the objects of discourse and the production of knowledge about sexual violence in the Catholic Church. These objects of discourse (the sexual abuser, the victim, sin, guilt, forgiveness, the institution, and silence) emerge and are articulated through rules of formation that not only posit violence as a referent but also regulate it discursively. The analytical trajectory presented stems from a broader master’s research encompassing 49 enunciative sequences from the CIASE Report, examined through Foucauldian concepts. As it is not possible to describe in full the archive concerning sexual violence and members of the Catholic Church, 19 sequences were selected, from which we extracted regularities in the articulation among power, knowledge, and sexuality in the production of truths about the event that sexual abuse by clergy has become.