Sacred crimes: a psychological approach

Sacred crimes: a psychological approach Grattagliano Ignazio, Cassibba Rosalinda, Mininni Giuseppe & Scardigno Rosa Department of educational sciences, psychology and communication University of Bari Aldo Moro Religions are constructed as systems of meanings (Park, 2005) and act as systems of communication (Pace, 2008): they offer to believers a set of beliefs, goals, a subjective sense of meaning, that are discursively and narratively constructed, socialized and acted. By offering stories and shared meanings, religions contribute to give order to social reality and propose to their interlocutors a kind of communicative contract (Mininni, Ghiglione, 1995): if and how the addressees accept this proposal open a wide range of positioning (Scardigno, 2010). On the extreme positions, the atheists refuse the contract, whereas the magic-idolizing positioning accept as long as they can see/touch the Transcendent. In the middle of this continuum, the interlocutors can become active intralocutors and construct their own religiosity. Most of time, this relation can be mediated by several kinds of vicarious figures: those who consider themselves as receiving viva-voce the divine Word; those who act rituals as empowered by a religious institution; those who can introduce the believer in an “other” dimension. These figures respectively refer to three kinds of charisma: personal, functional and specific charisma (Pace, 2008). Most of time, believers can meet religious figures having one kind of charisma; sometimes two of them can be met; in extraordinary cases, the three charismas join. These figures’ features really offer believers the possibility to construct a relation with a figure they can trust in, sometimes with a reverential attitude. Unfortunately, sometimes these religious men can take advantage of their positions: the words and the rituals that should offer meanings, values, comfort and hope, can become weapons and dangerous communicative tools for believers in good faith. In this background, the present work is focused on a case study: the subject is a 53-year-old man who is legally declared as blind, and who has various previous convictions for fraud and sexual abuse on minors. He would convince people that he was a Catholic clergyman and organized masses and personal appearances in which messages from God would supposedly come through him. In addition to overseeing two religious centers where he would gather groups of the “faithful” who believed in his visions, he would also make visits to people’s homes in order to pray and perform religious rites, as well as to offer his assistance in order to help them with their various problems. The case of this “bogus priest” came to our attention following new allegations of sexually abusing five juvenile males, four of them belonging to one family (ages 10, 13, 14, and 17), and the other, their 14 year old cousin. The minors belonged to families with a multitude of problems resulting from economic hardship and relational difficulties. Judicial investigations carried out revealed that the boys had been the objects of sexual abuse at his hands over a period of time. It came out that these episodes had occurred during prayer, at confession, and when receiving spiritual guidance. Content analysis and discourse analysis on the victims’ answers to the questionings revealed stories of a well-planned strategy by the “bogus priest” abuser: the trust is betrayed and the young boys declare the oppositions between the “paternal” attitude, during the day-light, and the “strange” behaviors, during the night-time. This case study offers the possibility to reflect that the sense of order proposed by a religious system of meanings can be overthrown: psychology of religion, psychopathology and law can find a common field for investigation.