This is more than just a riveting story but also a deeply informative grounding in Catholicism. As a new Catholic this is very useful and answers questions about what happened in my protestant experiences with power abusing pastors that accounted to no one. The truths here have universal applications for people exploited in the name of God and it is sweet music to those still in the desert of being left for dead after they were devoured.
Father Samuel Fernandez explains the difference between conformity to the institutional vows of obedience when the institution dismisses the conscience, and rigor of a good moral examination both institutionally and personally. These two elements should be at peace, if they are not, hard questions are the healing response. Unquestioning obedience without conformity to the love of God, obedience to Christ, and the humility of examination of the conscience, is the climate perpetrators thrive in, their victims, not so much
Yes. Abuse is as prevalent in Protestantism. The experience within Protestantism being exposed regularly now, particularly the Southern Baptists, shows celibacy isn't a factor in sexual abuse, contradicting a lot of the rhetoric within Catholicism that, if priests were allowed to marry, that form of abuse would decrease.
The victim blaming that goes on in all religious circles is predicated on the idea that abuse and exploitation are actually about sex. *This is why marriage doesn't cure sociopathy) While physical, spiritual and sexual assaults are the vehicle of the abuse, the driver is power, control, and domination. Ignatius might point to evil spirits influence as well. Stage 2 of the erasure of the survivor is the demand for silence and isolation. The bow on top of the abuse is to get the community to turn on the survivor. The perpetrator is very busy planting subtle seeds of doubt about his victim meanwhile pretending he is the victim. The offhand remark, the "worried about sister so and so" is part of the act . And through his charm, his good work, his charisma, his gifts, the end game is the erasure of the credibility of his victim and his control of the story.
The justice of making the world better and safer for survivors is the healing balm and telling the story is the first requirement of justice. (Judith Hermann 2023 new book about trauma recovery)
Celibacy doesn’t seem to me to be a cause, but I can’t help but think that women in leadership would reduce these abuses—or at least reduce recidivism. (For those who do not know, the Southern Baptists also do not have women pastors.)
This is something my wife and I ponder a lot. We both have backgrounds in organisational dynamics, and what we've noticed, is "patriarchy" seems related to the fact managers/priests have always traditionally been males. But, as women increase in senior leadership positions, we're now seeing women, just as abusive, although abusing differently (often more psychological/emotional than sexual), moving into those roles.
That is, it seems it was only the absence of females in those roles which made it seem that it was predominantly men who were abusers. Many female Anglican clergy, for example, are as clericalist as their male counterparts, although express it differently/more subtly.
Hi there, Jennifer. My wife and I are no experts. It's just from our observations in the workplace/churches. Although I have worked in experimental ministry projects, and wrote my undergrad dissertation in Clinical Theology at uni. We've both spent a great deal of time observing how people behave in churches, and I've continued researching independently, especially "deconstruction"/lapsation. My wife observes toxic management behaviours most in HR departments which are often dominated by women (usually bullying other women).
I don't know of any research in that field yet, but I think it's a ripe topic for research!
Only about halfway through, but need to pause on this part of your podcast: "...that's what makes these situations so difficult. Sometimes people with good intentions and poor boundaries can look exactly like people who are grooming someone with bad intentions. People in ministry might say to themselves, well, I'm not going to hurt this person. I care about him or her. I'm safe. So it's okay to stretch the boundaries a bit. This person needs some special attention. I can be like the presence of God to them. But what we don't realize is that bad boundaries are spiritually abusive in themselves, specially in the delicate context of spiritual direction. Worse still, they set up a person to tolerate the same behavior from someone who has malicious intent."
THIS RIGHT HERE is HUGE!!!!! As you say, "bad boundaries are spiritually abusive in themselves," especially in spiritual direction. This was my experience. This is a part of a story that I continue to wrestle with. The behaviors can be identical. In once case, it can be good intentions and bad boundaries, in the other it can be intentionally grooming. Sometimes, people with bad intentions form others and then we have a whole community with bad boundaries, where it is difficult to discern who is truly grooming and who is not.
We need better formation of spiritual directors, including ethical and moral guidelines for maintaining healthy and appropriate boundaries, and spiritual abuse should be a mandatory formation in my opinion. This is why I also am a firm believer that we need trauma-informed spiritual directors. This is also why healthy boundaries need be taught in the context of freedom and the spiritual life, as something holy and good. A spiritual director should never replace someone else's conscience. I worry that there is sometimes a dangerous narrative and idealization of spiritual direction as a place of obedience and that as long as you follow your spiritual director you are following God. This is so incredibly dangerous.
In each episode, I find content that is immediately relevant. In this case, it was Sister Danielle Victoria's discussion of dysfunction in her religious order that was not directly related to the sexual abuse issue, and how there was no interest in addressing any management issues.
Recently, I was speaking to the current and past Parish Council chairs at my parish. Both of them are nice people whom I consider friends. We were talking about a decision the council had recently made, and one of them mentioned that the Parish Council members did not know the parishioners involved in the situation. "We're a mega-church now," I said. "Maybe the council members could make an effort to get to know the people before they make decisions."
"That's not how we do it," the past chairwoman said. I'm sure my expression was priceless, and I replied, looking right at the current chairman, "Well, maybe that's the way you could do it in the future." He looked as though he had never thought of that.
The same gentleman was in a meeting earlier this week, and it was mentioned that the director of OCIA, whose phone number is listed in the bulletin as the contact for adults interested in joining the church or receiving the Sacraments, doesn't answer phone calls or reply to messages. "Why doesn't this man, who is a servant of the congregation, answer the phone?" I asked. The parish council chairman shrugged and said, "Caller ID?" and that was that.
There was no sense that he felt this was a situation that the parish authority superstructure should do something about ... just a shrug. There are terms for this sort of thing, including "pastoral malpractice" and "anti-evangelical," but what one gets from the Catholic Church as an institution is a big old *shrug*, sort of like one would expect at the DMV.
🎯 What you describe is so illustrative of common, and ubiquitous, problems in parishes (and so frustrating! 😔): *it's not just clergy*. (Ironically, the laypeople who seek "leadership" or "ministry" positions, often seem to be most critical of their priest: yet act like him.🙄)
I think this is where the "structural" nature of the problems, mentioned by Prusak, comes in.
There are some Protestants who have done quite a lot of research on why people are leaving in the current milieu, and it's not that they lose their faith in God, but "church". (It's interesting, a lot of them take their point of departure from the work of Charles Taylor, a Catholic Philosopher, in his book, "A Secular Age".) They call it "ecclesially deconstructed": they conclude "church" has lost its integrity, its integral nature.
That is, church, as a system, or "plausibility structure", as sociologist, Peter Berger, calls it, has lost its credibility.
The people in this situation (full disclosure, I am one), these researchers call the "dones", rather than the "nones". The "nones" were mostly fringe, but the "dones" are those who were at the heart of the church, faithful and often very active, involved in ministry, but realise/are broken by the sheer inertia, and how it's justified/rationalised with twisting theology and doctrine within "church" to keep the status quo, by those not wanting to relinquish control, thereby failing in "servant leadership". They like the status, but not the responsibility, as in the example you give...
Very good points. The people in my anecdotes are different from one another. The past council chairwoman came in with ideas to get things working more effectively, but she ran into endless obstacles - mainly from the clergy - and seems to have given up. The new gentleman is very sweet - I've worked with him in the youth program - but not a leader. I think he may have been in the bathroom when they said, "Who will be chairman next year?" and got back to find he was the only one who didn't say, "Not me!"
Structural dysfunction. As our Hispanic congregation has grown, we've had occasional friction. I don't like to say "racism," because "Hispanic" is not a race, and neither is "Spanish-speaking" or "immigrant" or "lacking schooling." It's accurate to say there's some prejudice regarding those qualities, but a larger issue is "structures of exclusion." If you're only communicating by email, or through an app that requires an email address, a lot of Hispanics will be left out. If you don't offer a Mass at 7:00 p.m. or later on Holy Days of Obligation, a lot of Hispanics can't come. 7:00 a.m. is already too late.
The key issue, as I see it, is the complete authority of the pastor of the parish. If that person is not a competent manager, or is ill, or is prejudiced, or has dementia, or is abusive, etc., etc., the whole organization is stuck. Things could be organized differently, such that functions that do not require ordination (i.e., everything other than Sacraments) were institutionally assigned to competent non-priest people. This would not be perfect, of course - plenty of non-church organizations are a mess - but it would be different.
Yes! 💙 I think your examples highlight what the sisters have been talking about in terms of "complexity".
Southern Baptists, and other non-conformist denoms, are simply sacked, or if sexual impropriety, handed over to the police, as they don't have "priesthood". They're just "ordinary men" (no women), although educated/formed, in the role of pastor. (Although, even then, there's still a "mystique", and level of awe, surrounding them.)
I agree, wholeheartedly, with the laity doing everything except the sacramental role: which could then imply other, beneficial, changes, like priests having to hold down a job, like "normal" people/permanent deacons...😯
For me, having "holy orders" as one of the seven sacraments, is so open to abuse/misinterpretation (superstitious, magical, "ontological"): by both sides of the "divide". It's on which so much (spiritual and psychological) abuse hinges, asyou can't just sack them because they have "protected status": and that is extremely dangerous...
Hi Marian. I've read what you've written here, and in comments on past episodes, and it's such a clear example of how the trauma of the things perpetrated upon us, can make us feel isolated, stuck, and trapped, ruminating on what happened, trying to resolve, or make sense of it, and how nobody seems to hear. If anything, they seem in denial and self-deception. It can literally, "drive us mad". 😔
As lay people ("little people", as you call us), we're left totally on our own to cope with it, and try to heal alone as best we can. In fact the reason were chosen as victims, is because they have a sixth-sense about our vulnerability. They know no-one will bother to listen to us.
I relate to your pain and frustration, and that no one seems to care. If anything, evil is so often rationalised in parishes, and victims are seen as trouble makers if they speak out, as they shine a light on the flaws of which they're not willing to acknowledge. I pray for your peace.
A key word you use, is "process". In many cases, we are unable to process, or get closure, as the whole system colludes in an ecclesial form of gaslighting. It does feel as if you're going mad: which is the intention.
The trouble is, leaving church is as hard as leaving a domestic abuse situation. The same toxic psychology is at play, especially abuse of the "hell card". What's worse, is it's implicit and covert, because Catholics are indoctrinated with the poison early on, in the same way an abusive spouse traps their victim in a marriage.
That sacrament is also abused to keep women trapped in toxic domestic situations. For, leaving a toxic marriage is tacitly frowned upon. They won't say it, but you feel the patronising/judgemental atmosphere from so many.
This is more than just a riveting story but also a deeply informative grounding in Catholicism. As a new Catholic this is very useful and answers questions about what happened in my protestant experiences with power abusing pastors that accounted to no one. The truths here have universal applications for people exploited in the name of God and it is sweet music to those still in the desert of being left for dead after they were devoured.
Father Samuel Fernandez explains the difference between conformity to the institutional vows of obedience when the institution dismisses the conscience, and rigor of a good moral examination both institutionally and personally. These two elements should be at peace, if they are not, hard questions are the healing response. Unquestioning obedience without conformity to the love of God, obedience to Christ, and the humility of examination of the conscience, is the climate perpetrators thrive in, their victims, not so much
Thank you so much for listening and sharing your insights, Caroline.
Yes. Abuse is as prevalent in Protestantism. The experience within Protestantism being exposed regularly now, particularly the Southern Baptists, shows celibacy isn't a factor in sexual abuse, contradicting a lot of the rhetoric within Catholicism that, if priests were allowed to marry, that form of abuse would decrease.
The victim blaming that goes on in all religious circles is predicated on the idea that abuse and exploitation are actually about sex. *This is why marriage doesn't cure sociopathy) While physical, spiritual and sexual assaults are the vehicle of the abuse, the driver is power, control, and domination. Ignatius might point to evil spirits influence as well. Stage 2 of the erasure of the survivor is the demand for silence and isolation. The bow on top of the abuse is to get the community to turn on the survivor. The perpetrator is very busy planting subtle seeds of doubt about his victim meanwhile pretending he is the victim. The offhand remark, the "worried about sister so and so" is part of the act . And through his charm, his good work, his charisma, his gifts, the end game is the erasure of the credibility of his victim and his control of the story.
The justice of making the world better and safer for survivors is the healing balm and telling the story is the first requirement of justice. (Judith Hermann 2023 new book about trauma recovery)
Yes. Yes. Yes...
Celibacy doesn’t seem to me to be a cause, but I can’t help but think that women in leadership would reduce these abuses—or at least reduce recidivism. (For those who do not know, the Southern Baptists also do not have women pastors.)
This is something my wife and I ponder a lot. We both have backgrounds in organisational dynamics, and what we've noticed, is "patriarchy" seems related to the fact managers/priests have always traditionally been males. But, as women increase in senior leadership positions, we're now seeing women, just as abusive, although abusing differently (often more psychological/emotional than sexual), moving into those roles.
That is, it seems it was only the absence of females in those roles which made it seem that it was predominantly men who were abusers. Many female Anglican clergy, for example, are as clericalist as their male counterparts, although express it differently/more subtly.
“It was only the absence of females in these roles that made it seem like it was predominantly men that were abusers”
I hear you say that you’re an expert. And that another, female, expert agrees with this. Any research available to back that up?
Hi there, Jennifer. My wife and I are no experts. It's just from our observations in the workplace/churches. Although I have worked in experimental ministry projects, and wrote my undergrad dissertation in Clinical Theology at uni. We've both spent a great deal of time observing how people behave in churches, and I've continued researching independently, especially "deconstruction"/lapsation. My wife observes toxic management behaviours most in HR departments which are often dominated by women (usually bullying other women).
I don't know of any research in that field yet, but I think it's a ripe topic for research!
Only about halfway through, but need to pause on this part of your podcast: "...that's what makes these situations so difficult. Sometimes people with good intentions and poor boundaries can look exactly like people who are grooming someone with bad intentions. People in ministry might say to themselves, well, I'm not going to hurt this person. I care about him or her. I'm safe. So it's okay to stretch the boundaries a bit. This person needs some special attention. I can be like the presence of God to them. But what we don't realize is that bad boundaries are spiritually abusive in themselves, specially in the delicate context of spiritual direction. Worse still, they set up a person to tolerate the same behavior from someone who has malicious intent."
THIS RIGHT HERE is HUGE!!!!! As you say, "bad boundaries are spiritually abusive in themselves," especially in spiritual direction. This was my experience. This is a part of a story that I continue to wrestle with. The behaviors can be identical. In once case, it can be good intentions and bad boundaries, in the other it can be intentionally grooming. Sometimes, people with bad intentions form others and then we have a whole community with bad boundaries, where it is difficult to discern who is truly grooming and who is not.
We need better formation of spiritual directors, including ethical and moral guidelines for maintaining healthy and appropriate boundaries, and spiritual abuse should be a mandatory formation in my opinion. This is why I also am a firm believer that we need trauma-informed spiritual directors. This is also why healthy boundaries need be taught in the context of freedom and the spiritual life, as something holy and good. A spiritual director should never replace someone else's conscience. I worry that there is sometimes a dangerous narrative and idealization of spiritual direction as a place of obedience and that as long as you follow your spiritual director you are following God. This is so incredibly dangerous.
Well said.
Amen. Thank you for listening and sharing your meaningful reflection, Emily.
Amen. Thank you for listening and sharing your meaningful reflection, Emily.
🎯So well put.
In each episode, I find content that is immediately relevant. In this case, it was Sister Danielle Victoria's discussion of dysfunction in her religious order that was not directly related to the sexual abuse issue, and how there was no interest in addressing any management issues.
Recently, I was speaking to the current and past Parish Council chairs at my parish. Both of them are nice people whom I consider friends. We were talking about a decision the council had recently made, and one of them mentioned that the Parish Council members did not know the parishioners involved in the situation. "We're a mega-church now," I said. "Maybe the council members could make an effort to get to know the people before they make decisions."
"That's not how we do it," the past chairwoman said. I'm sure my expression was priceless, and I replied, looking right at the current chairman, "Well, maybe that's the way you could do it in the future." He looked as though he had never thought of that.
The same gentleman was in a meeting earlier this week, and it was mentioned that the director of OCIA, whose phone number is listed in the bulletin as the contact for adults interested in joining the church or receiving the Sacraments, doesn't answer phone calls or reply to messages. "Why doesn't this man, who is a servant of the congregation, answer the phone?" I asked. The parish council chairman shrugged and said, "Caller ID?" and that was that.
There was no sense that he felt this was a situation that the parish authority superstructure should do something about ... just a shrug. There are terms for this sort of thing, including "pastoral malpractice" and "anti-evangelical," but what one gets from the Catholic Church as an institution is a big old *shrug*, sort of like one would expect at the DMV.
🎯 What you describe is so illustrative of common, and ubiquitous, problems in parishes (and so frustrating! 😔): *it's not just clergy*. (Ironically, the laypeople who seek "leadership" or "ministry" positions, often seem to be most critical of their priest: yet act like him.🙄)
I think this is where the "structural" nature of the problems, mentioned by Prusak, comes in.
There are some Protestants who have done quite a lot of research on why people are leaving in the current milieu, and it's not that they lose their faith in God, but "church". (It's interesting, a lot of them take their point of departure from the work of Charles Taylor, a Catholic Philosopher, in his book, "A Secular Age".) They call it "ecclesially deconstructed": they conclude "church" has lost its integrity, its integral nature.
That is, church, as a system, or "plausibility structure", as sociologist, Peter Berger, calls it, has lost its credibility.
The people in this situation (full disclosure, I am one), these researchers call the "dones", rather than the "nones". The "nones" were mostly fringe, but the "dones" are those who were at the heart of the church, faithful and often very active, involved in ministry, but realise/are broken by the sheer inertia, and how it's justified/rationalised with twisting theology and doctrine within "church" to keep the status quo, by those not wanting to relinquish control, thereby failing in "servant leadership". They like the status, but not the responsibility, as in the example you give...
Very good points. The people in my anecdotes are different from one another. The past council chairwoman came in with ideas to get things working more effectively, but she ran into endless obstacles - mainly from the clergy - and seems to have given up. The new gentleman is very sweet - I've worked with him in the youth program - but not a leader. I think he may have been in the bathroom when they said, "Who will be chairman next year?" and got back to find he was the only one who didn't say, "Not me!"
Structural dysfunction. As our Hispanic congregation has grown, we've had occasional friction. I don't like to say "racism," because "Hispanic" is not a race, and neither is "Spanish-speaking" or "immigrant" or "lacking schooling." It's accurate to say there's some prejudice regarding those qualities, but a larger issue is "structures of exclusion." If you're only communicating by email, or through an app that requires an email address, a lot of Hispanics will be left out. If you don't offer a Mass at 7:00 p.m. or later on Holy Days of Obligation, a lot of Hispanics can't come. 7:00 a.m. is already too late.
The key issue, as I see it, is the complete authority of the pastor of the parish. If that person is not a competent manager, or is ill, or is prejudiced, or has dementia, or is abusive, etc., etc., the whole organization is stuck. Things could be organized differently, such that functions that do not require ordination (i.e., everything other than Sacraments) were institutionally assigned to competent non-priest people. This would not be perfect, of course - plenty of non-church organizations are a mess - but it would be different.
Yes! 💙 I think your examples highlight what the sisters have been talking about in terms of "complexity".
Southern Baptists, and other non-conformist denoms, are simply sacked, or if sexual impropriety, handed over to the police, as they don't have "priesthood". They're just "ordinary men" (no women), although educated/formed, in the role of pastor. (Although, even then, there's still a "mystique", and level of awe, surrounding them.)
I agree, wholeheartedly, with the laity doing everything except the sacramental role: which could then imply other, beneficial, changes, like priests having to hold down a job, like "normal" people/permanent deacons...😯
For me, having "holy orders" as one of the seven sacraments, is so open to abuse/misinterpretation (superstitious, magical, "ontological"): by both sides of the "divide". It's on which so much (spiritual and psychological) abuse hinges, asyou can't just sack them because they have "protected status": and that is extremely dangerous...
Hi Marian. I've read what you've written here, and in comments on past episodes, and it's such a clear example of how the trauma of the things perpetrated upon us, can make us feel isolated, stuck, and trapped, ruminating on what happened, trying to resolve, or make sense of it, and how nobody seems to hear. If anything, they seem in denial and self-deception. It can literally, "drive us mad". 😔
As lay people ("little people", as you call us), we're left totally on our own to cope with it, and try to heal alone as best we can. In fact the reason were chosen as victims, is because they have a sixth-sense about our vulnerability. They know no-one will bother to listen to us.
I relate to your pain and frustration, and that no one seems to care. If anything, evil is so often rationalised in parishes, and victims are seen as trouble makers if they speak out, as they shine a light on the flaws of which they're not willing to acknowledge. I pray for your peace.
A key word you use, is "process". In many cases, we are unable to process, or get closure, as the whole system colludes in an ecclesial form of gaslighting. It does feel as if you're going mad: which is the intention.
The trouble is, leaving church is as hard as leaving a domestic abuse situation. The same toxic psychology is at play, especially abuse of the "hell card". What's worse, is it's implicit and covert, because Catholics are indoctrinated with the poison early on, in the same way an abusive spouse traps their victim in a marriage.
That sacrament is also abused to keep women trapped in toxic domestic situations. For, leaving a toxic marriage is tacitly frowned upon. They won't say it, but you feel the patronising/judgemental atmosphere from so many.