Abstract This article examines clerical sexual abuse of women religious through the lens of “vulnerance”, a critical theological and ethical framework. This perspective shifts the focus from individual fragilty to structurally engineered susceptibility. By analyzing the high-profile case of Manuel Pascual in Argentina, this research demonstrates how vulnerability is not an inherent trait of nuns, as implied by Canon Law’s “vulnerable adult” category. Instead, it is systematically manufactured through gendered hierarchies, clericalist ideologies, and “sacerdotal kits” of coercive control. In the Latin American context, this vulnerance is sustained by testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. Victims face immense hurdles in being heard due to profound credibility asymmetry while a moralistic monopoly on language frames violence as “sin” or “temptation”. These two components of epistemic injustice coalesce to sustain a socio-ecclesial culture of impunity and lack of restorative mechanisms forcing many survivors into silence as a survival strategy. Ultimately, addressing this abuse requires a radical dismantling of the patriarchal structures and “vulnerant” ecclesiologies that sacrifice women’s dignity to protect the institution. Reframing women religious as autonomous subjects of rights is essential to bridge the “interpretive void” facilitating exploitation.
This contribution explores some preliminary reflections on a theology of reparation developed from the testimonies of victim-survivors of abuse of power and sexual abuse in ecclesial contexts. Faced with the fundamental theological question: ‘How can we speak of God’s reparative love from the perspective of the victims’ suffering?’, the article rejects preconceived, apologetic or purely doctrinal answers, and proposes as the sole legitimate point of entry the attentive listening to the fractures in theological and spiritual certainties caused by the abuse. The central hypothesis maintains that the liberated word of survivors constitutes a genuine locus theologicus, and that the breaking of the cycle of violence constitutes the historical presence of the messianic dynamic of the Kingdom. The article examines the epistemological status of the victim-survivor’s word as a genuine theological locus of revelation, articulating five stages: scriptural and magisterial inspirations, the word-and-faith dialectic, the systemic dimension of abuse, revelation in the precariousness of the victims’ words, and new hermeneutical keys for rethinking Christianity from a non-abusive ecclesial culture.
This constructive practical-theological essay argues that ecclesial repair after abuse requires more than improved policies, reporting systems, or adjudicative procedures. Disclosure is often treated as a formal event that begins when a survivor speaks and an institution responds. This article reframes disclosure as a congregational condition formed beforehand in the ordinary practices through which churches distribute trust, regulate bodily access, and cultivate or foreclose vulnerable speech. Drawing on social epistemology, feminist theology, and trauma theology, it develops a diagnostic arc through credibility, bodily safety, and hearing practices. It argues that churches distribute credibility before adjudication; that practices around touch, prayer, warmth, and access teach whether refusal can be voiced without penalty; and that threshold, atmosphere, and availability shape whether testimony can become receivable. The article then proposes repair as the retraining of ordinary ecclesial practice: threshold availability, consent-shaped bodily norms, testimonial competence, and post-disclosure accompaniment. Repair is not a return to institutional normalcy, but a transformation of church life so difficult truth can appear and remain.
This article introduces Orige.net, an open-access digital platform that applies network analysis to the study of biblical quotation culture in the works of Origen of Alexandria. Moving beyond traditional hermeneutical approaches, it advances a quotation-centred methodology that examines how clusters of scriptural citations function as units of theological knowledge production in early Christian exegesis. After outlining the theoretical foundations of quotation culture and its relevance to patristic biblical interpretation, the article presents the structure, technical implementation, and research potential of Orige.net. The platform visualises relationships between passages in Origen’s corpus, biblical quotations, and doctrinal themes, enabling the identification of recurring patterns and central scriptural nodes. By reconstructing Origen’s intertextual and mnemonic engagement with Scripture, Orige.net offers a novel tool for Origenian studies and demonstrates the broader value of network analysis for the study of quotation, intertextuality, and knowledge production in antiquity.
This article examines safeguarding failures in Catholic diocesan seminaries through a qualitative comparative analysis of the cases of Argentine bishops Edgardo Gabriel Storni and Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta. Drawing on judicial decisions, ecclesiastical documents, published testimonies, journalistic investigations, and contextual consultations, it investigates how episcopal authority, vocational dependence, complaint trajectories, and institutional responses interacted to sustain abuse and delay accountability. Using Sara Ahmed’s concept of strategic inefficiency, complemented by institutional betrayal and safeguarding culture, the article shows that institutional failure was not reducible to isolated misconduct or administrative dysfunction. In the Storni case, strategic inefficiency operated primarily through the cumulative neutralization of warnings, records, testimonies, and formal inquiries. In the Zanchetta case, it appeared mainly through jurisdictional fragmentation, canonical opacity, and the disconnection of knowledge, protection, decision-making, and accountability. Across both cases, concentrated and sacralized authority, spiritualized fatherhood, favoritism, and vocational vulnerability blurred relational boundaries and increased the costs of complaint. The comparison contributes a preliminary typology of safeguarding-failure mechanisms and argues for mediated authority, independent reporting, external oversight, and traceable institutional decision-making in seminary formation.
