“THE DIOCESE’S DARKEST CHAPTER”: CONSTRUCTING CULTURAL TRAUMA IN THE ALTOONA-JOHNSTOWN CATHOLIC DICOESE
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Niebauer, Allison Kate
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 15, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Sarah Miller, Outside Unit & Field Member
Bradford Vivian, Major Field Member
Stephen Browne, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Denise Solomon, Program Head/Chair
Timothy Worley, Major Field Member - Keywords:
- Cultural trauma
Rhetorical Criticism
Catholic
Child Abuse
Communal Conflict
Social Change - Abstract:
- In 1988, a civil case was quietly filed by Michael Hutchison and his mother against Francis Luddy and the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, alleging clergy perpetrated sexual abuse (CPSA) and Diocesan cover up. Thirty years later, a Grand Jury investigation into the Diocese implicated two bishops and fifty priests in a cover-up of child sexual abuse, dating back to the 1950s. Public discourse labeled these revelations “the Diocese’s Darkest Chapter,” linking the revelations to the over widening scandal engulfing the global Catholic Church. How can we explain the change that occurred between 1988, when a private legal dispute was brought to the attention of the Blair County Court, and the widespread public perception in 2016 of a Catholic crisis—one that implicated the entire Catholic and non-Catholic community in central Pennsylvania? Explaining this change is the focus of this dissertation. Utilizing court cases, local media stories, pastoral letters, Pennsylvania legislative house fights, survivor testimony, and semi-structured interviews with lay people, I trace the evolution of the public debate over CPSA in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. This public debate is representative of the process happening throughout Dioceses in the United States during this period. The Luddy case portrayed the problem of CPSA in the Diocese as one of institutional failure to protect children—one that required civil remedies for victims and institutional (rather than doctrinal) reforms within the Church. Despite efforts to challenge this narrative from multiple stakeholders throughout the thirty years, this portrait of institutional failure has dominated public discourse and directed reforms and remedies for CPSA within the Catholic Church in America. This process of public attribution and contestation is best understood through the lens of cultural trauma—or the process by which communal violations come to be viewed as a wound to the cultural fabric of a society. Stakeholders, utilizing the inventive and constraining resources of the legal system, the pulpit, and legislation, narrated the meaning of communal violations for a public audience in an effort to achieve specific goals. Stakeholder narratives are therefore highly rhetorical, requiring the use of specific speech modes, genres, strategies, and assimilative strategies. Because stakeholder narratives attribute blame and direct public action, these rhetorical forms are likely to repeat themselves in situations of cultural trauma. Illuminating these durable rhetorical forms help us to better understand the role of communication in this process of social change.