Pope Leo XIV’s June 5 meeting with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors marks a beginning to his response to the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. As calls for accountability grow louder, the Vatican’s next steps could define this pontificate’s approach to safeguarding against all forms of abuse in the church.
One potential step was proposed last November by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The cardinal’s announcement concerned the potential addition of a delict in the Code of Canon Law to address “spiritual abuse.” This initiative, prompted by the troubling reality of spiritual manipulation for sexual exploitation, rightly acknowledges a grave form of harm. However, while Cardinal Fernández’s proposal is a necessary step, the initiative as currently presented risks obscuring the full reality of spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church.
In a January interview, Cardinal Fernández clarified that the proposed law would target instances where spiritual beliefs and practices, “spiritual elements,” are weaponized to coerce individuals into sexual activity. The cardinal’s reason for this proposed change is that this abuse of spirituality for sexual grooming is “unfortunately not uncommon,” and there is currently no specific law for the church to prosecute such offenses.
Cardinal Fernández is absolutely right when he says that this manipulation of spiritual beliefs and practices for sexual grooming is not rare. There are multiple high-profile cases that demonstrate this behavior, the most recent being that of the Rev. Marko Rupnik, a famous artist who has been accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing more than 20 women. This is an active case on Pope Leo’s desk, and Vatican News has begun removing images of Father Rupnik’s artwork from its website.
The disgraced former Jesuit’s predatory behavior is not dissimilar from that of Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, who is alleged to have groomed the women he abused. Then there is the former chaplain and Franciscan friar at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, David Morrier, who sexually abused a college student under the guise of spiritual deliverance.
Beyond the high-profile cases, the use of spirituality to groom victims for sexual abuse is a very common part of testimonies from survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of spiritual leaders. The attention that the D.D.F. is giving this kind of abuse is long overdue. However, I have two concerns with the legislation being proposed by Cardinal Fernández.
The first concern is how the cardinal is linking spiritual abuse with sexual abuse. Limiting the definition of spiritual abuse solely to its connection with sexual abuse risks obscuring a wider spectrum of harm. The abuse Cardinal Fernández is trying to address is indeed a kind of spiritual abuse, but spiritual abuse includes so much more.
The church’s safeguarding efforts have centered on protecting children from sexual abuse. While this focus remains paramount, it can inadvertently create the impression that adults are immune to harm. This is far from the truth. The inherent power dynamics within pastoral relationships make adults vulnerable to various forms of abuse. Further, the near-exclusive focus on sexual abuse has led to a lack of acknowledgment of other kinds of abuse, especially spiritual abuse.
Spiritual abuse has only been studied in the past few decades. Because of that, there is not a universally agreed-upon definition. However, the bishops of Austria define spiritual abuse in their 2021 safeguarding framework by saying, “Spiritual abuse is committed when pressure and lack of freedom are created and dependency is generated and exploited by means of religious content or by invoking spiritual authority.” This is congruent with how Dr. Lisa Oakley, a leading researcher in this area, defines spiritual abuse: “Spiritual abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. It is characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context.”
While there is no widespread awareness of spiritual abuse in the church, that does not mean it is not a widespread problem. In one study, 75 percent of adult Christians reported experiencing harm in their religious communities due to manipulation, coercion or abuse of power. Anyone with spiritual authority over others can inflict spiritual abuse.
Within the Catholic Church, spiritual abuse manifests in diverse ways. It can be as public as a priest threatening his congregation with hell or mortal sin if they vote for a particular political candidate. It is as private as a spiritual director telling their directee that God wants her to be a religious sister and that not pursuing that vocation is going against God’s will. It can look as overt as a narcissistic pastor bullying his staff or as subtle as a catechist telling someone preparing to enter the Catholic Church that they committed a mortal sin when they got divorced years before.
Even when it is not combined with sexual abuse, spiritual abuse can have long-term negative effects on someone’s nervous system and can cause depression, anxiety, dissociation, intrusive thoughts and hypervigilance. Spiritual abuse can also severely damage an individual’s relationship with God and the church. The signs and symbols of a person’s faith that were once sources of consolation may now trigger flashbacks or panic attacks. The trauma from spiritual abuse can severely impact the quality of a person’s psychological, social and spiritual life.
In my work as both a catechist and mental health professional, I have seen the impact of spiritual abuse firsthand. I have worked with Catholics who would go to Mass multiple times a week but who now struggle to attend at all—or have stopped going altogether—due to triggers leading to panic attacks. I have walked with individuals who now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms to such an extent that it is impacting their marriages. I have seen young people with vibrant prayer lives who no longer trust God because they have difficulty discerning God’s voice from the voice of their abuser. I have known former church employees who lost both their livelihood and their community due to narcissistic abuse from their pastor. Spiritual abuse is an unaddressed crisis within the church.
My second concern is Cardinal Fernández’s apparent lack of attention to the fact that abuse of power is the core problem with spiritual abuse, not the misuse of “spiritual elements.” The spiritual elements are the means by which power is abused. Even in his description of these crimes, the cardinal uses the phrase “sexual relations,” as if he were describing a consensual relationship. There is widespread understanding within helping professions that the power dynamic inherent in therapist-client relationships makes sexual activity deeply unethical and often criminal. Likewise, the inherent imbalance of power in the pastoral relationships to which Cardinal Fernández refers makes sexual behavior, by definition, nonconsensual, and that is even before the use of spirituality to manipulate and coerce the individual seeking pastoral care.
None of this is to disagree with Cardinal Fernández that there ought to be a specific law to address those who use spiritual authority to sexually groom individuals under their care. In fact, the combination of spiritual and sexual abuse can be doubly harmful to survivors because amid the trauma from their sexual assault, the survivor may lose the support of their faith community, no longer feel secure in the safety of the church and the sacraments, or feel alienated from God because it was God’s representatives who abused them.
However, while this proposed change to canon law is a necessary step in addressing the specific intersection of spiritual and sexual abuse, we must ensure that it does not come at the expense of recognizing and responding to the broader reality of spiritual harm in the church. Further, the specific delict of spiritual abuse must make the abuse of power the core issue, not simply the misuse of spiritual elements. If these concerns are adequately addressed, the changes begun by Cardinal Fernández could be a salutary first step in the urgent and necessary work of safeguarding the church from all forms of abuse.
