This anthology is the first in a series published by the Centre for Child Protection (CCP), part of the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. The CCP's aim is to promote a diversity of research projects and educational initiatives (including certificates in safeguarding minors in ecclesial settings). The text is divided into four parts: theology, care, treating and managing perpetrators, and self-care.

The theology section, which contains four essays by three different men, treats God-language and language about salvation in an abusive context, as well as the theology of priesthood and sexual ethics. In the first two essays, James Corkery (who writes both) creatively mines traditional resources to talk about God and salvation in pastorally sensitive ways. But the other two essays in this section, by Etienne Veto and Paolo Benanti, are less creative, though perhaps not less interesting—Veto's primary aim is to carefully specify a theology of priesthood that prioritizes the common priesthood of all the baptized as the main form of priesthood, with the ministerial priesthood existing only as a support for this more generalized form of priesthood. As Veto explains, it is not necessary to develop the church's theology of priesthood in any way, only “simply to read the teaching of the Church in an attentive manner” (61). Benanti's essay argues that a postmodern bifurcation of sexual expression and procreative, marital love needs to be combatted in order to address the “specific malice of pedophilia” (74). Benanti's argument seems to miss the gravity and specificity of sexual abuse of children by clerics. By foregrounding the changes in sexual mores that happened in the 1960s and 1970s, he sidesteps the reality that rampant sexual violence was perpetrated by Catholic clergy against minors before this shift even takes place. The uneven quality of the essays in this section reflects the broader lack of coherency in the church's approach to clerical sexual abuse: the institutional church continues to struggle to avoid defensiveness and regularly shifts blame from its own theological positions and policies onto broader social trends.

The remaining sections helpfully address important issues that emerge in pastoral care of victim-survivors (including spiritual disempowerment, fractured trust in God and in the world), perpetrators (especially the cultivation of a shame-free guilt and zero-tolerance of violent actions while maintaining an openness to violent persons), and helping professionals (addressing burnout and secondary forms of trauma as well as emotion regulation). An essay by German theologian Hildegund Keul particularly stands out as a constructive contribution to an understanding of vulnerability as both creating the conditions for sexual abuse and its institutional cover-up. Keul argues that the church needs to embrace vulnerability in order to have the courage to account for its own actions and restore belief in the resurrection.

Some of the essays in this anthology will be helpful for both church professionals and theology students who are seeking to understand how the church has failed to safeguard minors and what needs to happen for the church to improve its safeguarding. Yet, some of the essays miss the mark (especially, Paolo Benanti's essay) and provoke questions about why these were included and other voices were not included (notably, any female theologians in the “theology” section). In this way, then, this anthology accurately reflects the broader institutional church's uneven commitment to honest accounting and reform.