Nearly 25 years ago, survivors and journalists put Boston at the center of international conversations about religion and sexual abuse. In the aftermath of the scandal, a group of Boston Catholics created BishopAccountability.org, a small nonprofit which has now become the world’s largest digital archive of religious abuse. This panel brings scholars into conversation with Boston-area survivors, attorneys, and activists who have worked extensively with Bishop Accountability, to reflect together on a shared set of critical questions, including: How have digital abuse archives influenced public understandings of religion? What forms of justice can open-access archives produce for survivors and their families? What opportunities do these archives present for teaching and research? Given that similar efforts to document sexual violence in other traditions have been shut down, what has made BishopAccountability sustainable? And finally, what does this abuse archive teach us about the digital futures of religious studies?
| Terry McKiernan , Bishop Accountability | mckiernan1@comcast.net | View |