Abuses in Religious Life: An Interview with Sr. Theresa Aletheia

The Pillar recently published an article entitled, ‘God is constantly calling’ — Women religious talk vocations, in which Sr. Theresa Aletheia is quoted.

We wanted to share her full responses to the interview with you, as they touch on an issue close to our hearts: the connection between vocations and the reality of abuses within religious life. This is not an abstract concern for us. As part of our mission, we regularly listen to people who have endured abuse in religious communities—some of whom, after leaving, can no longer practice their faith. This is a sobering reality that, amid all the enthusiasm around vocations, is absolutely crucial to address.

Religious life is a beautiful vocation, but its beauty depends on speaking openly about the possibility of abuses and actively rooting them out.

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1. What is the name of your community?

Sr. Danielle Victoria Lussier and I began our community, the Sisters of the Little Way of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness in 2023. We are a private association of the faithful intending to become a religious institute and we reside in the Catholic Diocese of Lexington in Kentucky. We live a mission of listening, repair, and solidarity with people on the fringes of the Church, especially those who have been wounded, scandalized, or abused by members of the Church.

2. How were vocations to women religious communities impacted by the 2002 sex abuse scandals and the 2018 McCarrick scandals?

I don't believe there's data around this question. In fact, there is a great need for better data around many of the issues in women's religious life, especially the prevalence of sexual abuse.

Sr. Danielle Victoria and I are currently working on an audio documentary, or limited series podcast, called Descent Into Light, which we will release this October. The series delves into the issue of adult abuse in the Church using our own experiences of being groomed by a once-beloved spiritual director, (experiences that we shared about in 2024 in the Pillar). We use our own experiences as the setting from which we open up the issue of adult abuse because we think it's crucial to explore more nuanced situations of abuse so we can identify issues before they turn into a headline.

Something that we have learned as we speak to experts for this project is that there's a dearth of data around women survivors of sexual abuse in the Church in general, not just in religious life. Given the fact that women are the victims of sexual abuse at a much higher rate than men generally in society, it seems very likely that women are the majority of victims of sexual abuse in the Church as well. But data around this crucial issue is sorely lacking. That's something that Sr. Danielle and I believe needs to change.

3. What do religious communities need to learn about abuse and how it can be detrimental to vocations?

For many years, it seems as though most people were generally unaware of abuses that occur both in the seminary and in religious life. I know when I was discerning my vocation, I was completely unaware of these realities. It was only once I joined the convent that I began to hear, in hushed whispers, about some of the most serious abuses that occur in the convent. I also was never taught about them during my formation. Unfortunately, most religious communities do not include formation on abuse in their formation programs. And when I say formation around abuse, I am not just speaking of the possibility of sexual abuse; I am referring to a much wider issue in religious communities. Abuses of power, abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, and emotional and physical abuse can happen in virtually every religious community. No religious community composed of humans is immune to these realities.

Both Sr. Danielle and I are convinced that speaking about all forms of abuse in the open is the first step in preventing abuse. Thankfully, as a Church, we are beginning to speak more openly about these things and it's necessary to continue to do so. It's time to bring these realities to the light, face them, and face why they happen.

4. How is formation and the life of a community important in promoting and maintaining vocations?

Formation and the life of a community are crucial in maintaining vocations. But, speaking of the lack of data around issues in women's religious life, there's no data, as far as I know, of communities' retention rates. Had I known what I know now, after about fifteen years in religious life, I would have asked this question when I was discerning: "How many of your perpetually professed sisters have left in the past five or ten years and what percentage of your total membership is that?" This is information I had about colleges as a college student but it's not information that is readily available to men and women discerning religious life.

These numbers would be revealing and very helpful for discerners. If perpetually professed members are leaving at a high rate from a community, it's very likely a sign of a serious and more systemic issue. If a man or woman has invested many years into a community and is making the serious step of leaving, deeper issues in the community often motivate these choices. If a community were to take these departures seriously, conduct exit interviews, and examine the issues that are raised in these interviews, that would be a sign of health. But, to be frank, I am unaware of any community that does this. And if someone is aware of a community that does this well, please let me know!

5. How do instances of abuse impact vocations to a religious community?

Sr. Danielle and I listen to the stories of many people who have been hurt in the Church and many who contact us have been wounded in religious life. I think the ripple effect of these traumatic experiences almost certainly impact vocations to religious life. But, again, this is an issue that would merit research. One thing that I have come to believe is that abuses in religious life are likely, especially if we are speaking more generally of spiritual abuse. So, I think the first step to health in a community is to soberly recognize that many ingredients exist in religious life that can create fertile ground for spiritual abuse—as well as other forms of abuse, including abuse of power, abuse of conscience, emotional and physical abuse, etc.

If this is true, then the first sign of the health of a community is not whether it completely avoids all forms of abuse but whether it speaks of the possibility of these realities openly. This would involve incorporating training around these abuses for both new sisters’ formation and for leaders in the community. In other words, the bigger question is whether a community is transparent around abuses that can take place. And, most importantly, is a community willing to take responsibility and seek repair when harm is caused?

For the most part, though, religious communities often do not even speak openly of sexual abuses that occur in their midst, let alone other forms of abuse. This is a serious problem. If we think of some of the very public cases of sexual abuse in religious communities, very few are publicized by the community itself but rather come from former members. This lack of transparency around instances of abuse is the first problem. Unless forced to do so by public uproar, very few communities speak openly, meaning not just internally but publicly, about a case of abuse in their midst. If a community were to speak publicly of these cases of their own volition, that would be a sign of health rather than unhealth.

If we want to live in the truth, we must acknowledge that these abuses and their coverup hurt the Body of Christ and further undermine the authoritative voice of the Church. So they need to be dealt with openly rather than internally or in complete secrecy. We tend to think that speaking of these scandals hurt the Body of Christ but it's not so much the scandal that wounds us, as these are inevitable, but the secrecy around scandal that results in greater damage.

6. Do more vocations mean that the Church is healthier? Should that be a metric of success?

The simple answer to this question is absolutely not. More vocations is not necessarily a sign of health—in a particular community or in the Church in general. As a community at the start of the process of becoming a religious institute, Sr. Danielle and I are aware that growing in vocations is the first requirement of moving to the next step in the process. This motivation for new communities to acquire new members at any cost leaves many men and women as collateral damage. Large groups of incoming postulants also help a community receive donations. All that to say, communities have many motivations, aside from the good of an individual, to admit someone.

Perhaps a metric of a religious community’s success, more centered on the dignity of the human person, could be the retention of members over the time of formation and after profession. These metrics are needed for both formation as well as after profession because some communities, rather than doing the work of discerning with individuals over time before admitting them, admit large groups at the start and then send candidates home over the period of formation. This method might be the most efficient but it certainly is not the most compassionate. In our ministry, Sr. Danielle and I speak to many women who have been deeply wounded by this method of receiving and sending away vocations.

7. As a religious sister who helped start a new community, how do you see the vocation crisis?

We are quick to point fingers when it comes to the vocations crisis saying that the world has changed for the worse or Vatican II is to blame. But the reality is that many abuses were present in religious life before Vatican II. We have spoken to many religious sisters who lived through both pre-Vatican II religious life and in more contemporary communities, and the patterns of abuse are similar. In other words, many of the abuses present before Vatican II are still present. Religious life is still in need of a reform that requires deeper examination, not superficial changes.

Our vocations’ crisis is not only about attracting potential vocations but retaining them. A religious community oriented toward the flourishing of the human person will attract rather than repel both in the short term and the long term. And sometimes the fallout of abuse can take decades to become evident in the demographics of a religious community. A community oriented toward human flourishing in the long term would need to address abuses in the religious life openly and humbly so as to attack the roots of these repellant weeds that cause trauma for people and can ultimately lead to later departures of professed members. This deeper, more difficult work does not make itself apparent in flashy vocational pamphlets but is instead evidenced in the long-term structural health of a community.

8. How can the Church help to promote vocations to women religious communities?

Promoting vocations begins with the crucial step of ensuring health in religious communities. Health is not always clear from the outside. A community could be "booming" and in reality be very unhealthy. In fact, communities with smaller incoming groups can be a sign of health rather than unhealth as it shows the community is putting the difficult work of individual accompaniment first.

In 2022, Pope Francis altered the process that religious communities can take to become a religious institute. It used to be that a bishop could approve the step of becoming a public association. Now only the Vatican can approve that step. Though this reform intimately impacts our lives, Sr. Danielle and I believe that it was necessary to prevent spiritual abuse and dysfunction in new communities. So, this is an example of some of the oversight that is needed. I also think communities need more oversight in general, and not just from bishops because sometimes bishops are unaware of the dynamics of abuse that can occur in religious communities. Oversight by other experts who know what to look for and how to address these issues is also needed in these communities. So, oversight both locally and more universally is needed.

Also, some of the experts we have spoken to have advocated changes in canon law to address abuses of power and abuses of conscience that occur in religious life. Right now, people in these situations have very little recourse practically and so often people who want to remain in religious life find themselves forced to leave because it’s the only way to escape abusive situations.

9. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Sr. Danielle and I are convinced that the next step in addressing abuse in the Church is to tackle adult abuse, not just in religious life but in general. For this reason, we have dedicated a lot of time and energy to creating an audio documentary, or limited series podcast, on the topic of adult abuse. The series called Descent Into Light will be released this Fall.

If we want to get to the roots of abuse in the Church, it’s necessary to acknowledge that both children and adults experience abuse. Therefore, many abuse prevention plans and policies in our dioceses need to expand to acknowledge this wider reality of abuse. Instead, many current policies only focus on so-called “vulnerable adults,” which often excludes adults in religious life, men in the seminary, as well as any adult under a power differential.

Widening our scope of what abuse involves may seem overwhelming and frightening in its implications. But the credibility of the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel requires tackling all forms of abuse perpetrated by clergy, religious, and other lay leaders.