Author:
- Julia Martínez-Ariño, Faculteit Religie, Cultuur en Maatschappij (Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (University of Groningen) - Personal Website, Academia.edu, Google Scholar, ORCID

Abstract: »Across the world, cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church have generated outrage, disgust and rejection of the institution. This article examines the discourses of rejection of the Church by self-identified and formally recognized apostates in Argentina and Spain. Their motivations to leave the Catholic Church formally are diverse and include references to its interference with politics, its opposition towards the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights and its financial benefits, among others. However, this contribution will focus in particular on the Church’s position around sexual abuses within the institution as a reason to leave the institution. Based on narrative interviews with 44 apostates – that is, individuals who have formally requested that their personal data be removed from the Church’s records –, the chapter argues that apostatizing from the Church is seen as a strategy to denounce not only the abuse cases in themselves but also the way the institution has dealt with those cases in the two countries under investigation. The findings suggest that, with their public mobilisation, apostates contribute indirectly to the transformation of cases into scandals. This happens against a background of strong anticlerical national histories and a period of heightened feminist mobilisation in both national contexts that favoured the public mobilisation against the Church.« (Source: Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Spain | History of the Americas: History of Argentina | Catholic Church: Catholic Church in Argentina, Catholic Church in Spain | Sex and the law: Sexual violence / Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Europe, Catholic sexual abuse cases in Latin America