Geweihte Sünder

Child sexual abuse by clergy within the Christian churches is not just a contemporary phenomenon. The question of the correct way to deal with perpetrators of abuse from within its own ranks has preoccupied the church for centuries. This dissertation reconstructs the normative genesis of the offence of abuse in ecclesiastical law from its beginnings in Christian late antiquity to the Reformation. Through this reconstruction, lines of tradition of the (Catholic) Church in dealing with sexual abuse become visible while the underlying self-image of church actors is embedded in a historical context. The clarification of the past and the legal traditions that are still effective today can serve as an aid in overcoming current problems that fundamentally affect the relationship between church and state.