Defenders neutralize priest sexual abuse by denying the offense and blaming conspiracies

Evidence

Once again Donohue came to the rescue (Donohue, 2012d). He argued that no crime had been committed: “The case did not involve child sexual abuse—no child was ever abused, or touched… . Nor did this case involve child pornography.” He attributed the trial to an anti-Catholic conspiracy: … [W]e find the chorus of condemnations targeting Bishop Finn to be as unfair as they are contrived” (Donohue, 2012d). By denying the offenses and blaming conspirators for the alleged unfair trial, Donohue stripped the immorality from pornographic abuse of young children. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 513

Categorization

• XREF: This is a textbook illustration of Bandura’s neutralization techniques (denial of victim, blaming the accuser) — connects to his own framework of moral disengagement mechanisms like euphemistic labeling and displacement of responsibility.