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vii Acknowledgements there are many people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude in seeing this book through to fruition. First, this book would have been many more years in the making without the expertise and dedication of my research assistants. Tim Crouch and Ryan McNally were involved in this project for close to three years intermittently. Barb Adle helped out at a time when she was much needed. We were all inspired to investigate these policies and their attendant evolutions out of a commitment to the work of justice and the protection of the vulnerable. Religious communities have a particular responsibility to safeguard the children in their midst and to nurture their spirits. Yet widespread child sexual abuse continues. This book is born of the outrage that must stoke any crucible of justice. To all of you who have suffered such abuse, I am truly and deeply sorry. No child should ever be abused. I am both heartened by the work done at a policy level and overwhelmed by the need for more healing and prevention. Numerous individuals in the religious institutions examined in this book have invested much courage, soul, and wisdom in the crafting of policies and procedures addressing child sexual abuse within their faith communities. To them I extend heartfelt gratitude; this is not easy work. The research and the preparation of this book was supported financially by the following organizations and institutions: Queen’s University, where I am employed, and, indirectly, by the Cornwall Public Inquiry, with whom I had a contract to produce the paper“A Survey of Policies and Practices in Respect to Responses by Religious Institutions to Complaints of Child Sexual Abuse and Complaints by Adults of Historical Child Sexual Abuse, 1960–2006.”This paper was one of four tabled as exhibits in Phase 1 of the inquiry. I did not influence or discuss evidence with the commissioner or anyone else associated with the inquiry in respect to Phase 1 factual determinations. This report for the inquiry formed the base for this book. Additional research and writing was done to complete this book in the years following the submission of the research paper to the inquiry. viii Acknowledgements Heartfelt appreciation goes to my outstanding research assistants, the anonymous peer reviewers who provided invaluable critique, and always to the wonderful people at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, in particular Leslie Macredie, Lisa Quinn, and Rob Kohlmeier, for their encouragement and assistance. Any mistakes remaining in these pages are mine alone. ...

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