Albert M. Liberatore, STD, PhD
Albert M. Liberatore holds a doctorate in Theology from the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven in Belgium, where he studied Karl Rahner’s unique theory of symbolization as a way into understanding the nature of doctrinal truth. As a part of his doctoral work, he completed a comprehensive bibliographical guide to Rahner’s 23-volume Theological Investigations and he published a new English translation of some of Rahner’s key German theological terms. Over the course of more than eight years in Belgium, prior to earning his doctorate he also studied graduate-level Philosophy at Leuven’s Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, and then he completed a BA and an MA in Religious Studies along with a pontifical baccalaureate degree in Theology before going on to earn a licentiate degree in Sacramental Theology with a study of how catechumens engaged in the process of Christian conversion contribute to the self-enactment of the Church. In the United States, Dr. Liberatore held the St. Pius X Chair of Theology at the University of Scranton, where he taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in Systematic Theology and directed graduate theses. He has also taught in the Theology department at Miseracordia University in Dallas, PA, served as Academic Dean of St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton, PA, and worked as managing editor for several editorial agencies based in the United States and Australia.
First as a seminarian, then as a priest, and finally as Vocation Director of the Diocese of Scranton, Dr. Liberatore spent seventeen years living and working in seminaries, giving him an insider’s view of the strengths and weakness of the screening of candidates for priesthood as well as the process of seminary formation. When his own involvement in the abuse crisis resulted in his laicization, he spent the next decade and a half in an intense and personal examination of the ways that psychosexual immaturity, cognitive distortions, and clerical culture contribute to the dynamics that can lead to sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. It was this experience, more than any other, that developed in him a passion for rooting out the causes of the sexual abuse crisis that has harmed countless people’s lives and wreaked such havoc on the Church and society.
During this latter period, Dr. Liberatore also engaged in an ongoing discussion of the clergy sexual abuse crisis with his friend and mentor, theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ. It was Cardinal Dulles who encouraged Dr. Liberatore to put his personal experience of the abuse crisis, coupled with his theological background, at the service of the Church. When contacted by Opus Bono Sacerdotii President Joseph Maher in 2017, Dr. Liberatore joined him in co-founding the Dulles Research Institute as a way to contribute to the prevention of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church through independent, scholarly research, dialogue, and publication aimed at uncovering the causes of the abuse crisis and working for a healthier future for Catholic priests.