This move follows high-profile cases where spirituality was misused to justify abusive behaviour. With Pope Francis's approval, a working group has been established to study the issue and propose concrete legal changes.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), in collaboration with the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, announced on 22 November the formation of this group. Archbishop Filippo Iannone, head of the legislative dicastery, will lead the initiative.

The goal is to create a clear legal framework to address spiritual abuse. This has often been considered an aggravating factor in other crimes rather than a crime in its own right.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the DDF, highlighted the need to refine terminology, particularly the term "false mysticism". The cardinal described it as overly broad and ambiguous. He noted its current use in cases involving alleged supernatural phenomena, such as apparitions or visions. The term has also been linked to allegations of clerical abuse.

Particular moral gravity

The DDF's 2024 Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena already label the misuse of mystical experiences to manipulate or abuse as a matter of "particular moral gravity".

However, the new working group will seek to formally categorise spiritual abuse as a distinct delict in canon law.

Recent scandals have drawn attention to the misuse of spirituality for abusive purposes. Former Jesuit Marko Rupnik, for example, faced allegations that he used spiritual justifications to exploit individuals while creating religious art. Similarly, accusations against Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, and leaders of other Catholic movements have involved claims of mixing spiritual authority with coercive behaviour.

Cardinal Fernández has emphasised the Church's increased vigilance in addressing such issues. "Today, we are more vigilant than before when it comes to the possibility of mystical or spiritual elements being used to exploit or even abuse people" he stated.

Sources

UCA News

Catholic News Agency

English Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

At their plenary assembly on September 25, 2018, the German Catholic bishops published a study documenting cases of abuse between 1946 and 2014.

At the end of 2020, the Protestant Church of Germany began research on sexual abuse in their Churches.

On January 25, 2024, this study was made public.

Similarities

What these two studies have in common is the role that clericalism plays in sexual abuse in Christian communities, local churches, religious congregations, and organisations.

In the area of sexual abuse, it is clear that listening to the testimony of those whom clergy have abused, religious and lay leaders, is central because their testimonies reveal general patterns of abuse related to psycho-sexual and psycho-social dysfunctions, most of which are related to a clericalist mindset.

Although these studies show a difference between the denominations regarding celibacy's impact on abuse, they show a substantial similarity regarding clericalism.

Abuse patterns in Protestant congregations generally include enforced discussions about sexuality and the unfulfilled sexual desires of pastors in their own families.

Hence, there are many references to the influence of the social demands for sexual freedom and sexualised living as contexts of abuse.

The presence of the pastor's family, while not completely removing the risk factor of abuse, does make the concealment of abuse more complex.

By contrast, in Catholic contexts, where for celibates, there is an absolute prohibition against sexual activity, the experience of sexualised abuse cannot be related to social phenomena like social promiscuity or social change in the 1960s or 1970s.

Consequently, where one can "blame" the outside world for the Protestant experience of abuse, the "blame" for the catholic experience must be sought within the Church itself.

The correlation of clericalism between both denominations could be summed up as follows:

"The institution comes first before everyone and everything else!"

For both denominations, those who administer the institution (diocese, local Church, parish, religious order/congregation, church business, and schools) of church work primarily to protect the institution's reputation.

Evidence shows that the "geographical solution" of moving an offender from one parish to another, one diocese to another, and one school to another has been used to protect the institution's reputation, not to heal the abused or address the offending.

The various reports expose the folly of this strategy; unfortunately, what the institutional leaders seek to protect—because it is sacred to them—becomes the thing most at risk of scandal.

Spiritual abuse, particularly prevalent in Catholic contexts, further complicates the issue, serving as a precursor to sexual misconduct.

This insidious form of manipulation highlights the power dynamics within the clergy and underscores the urgent need for reform.

However, this factor is almost irrelevant in cases within the Protestant context.

Consequently, although Catholic perpetrators often emphasise the intellectual and spiritual distance from their victims, Protestant perpetrators draw the affected into an overwhelming adult world of marital problems and sexuality and ask the victim to become the solution to these issues.

Catholic risk factors

​Clericalism and celibacy are Catholic risk factors because:

• they partly explain the phenomena of physical, sexual, and spiritual abuse,
• they play a significant role in the formation of clergy and seminarians, and
• they influence the structure and experience of clerical and religious life and parishes.

Because clericalism and celibacy ground the clerical and religious life, those who participate in these lifestyles become immersed in a "functional clericalism" that impacts how they live celibacy.

This functional clericalism is minimised by the cliché "Father knows best."

Functional clericalism is evident, too, when Father absents himself from the reality of the contemporary world by retreating into a private world of piety and liturgical practices that face the past and not the present.

Another example of functional clericalism is the unwillingness of priests to consecrate enough hosts for the people at Mass so that all can be fed from the Eucharistic Table at the Eucharist they attend.

Instead, just before communion distribution, he trots off to the Tabernacle to bring pre-consecrated hosts from a week ago for the people. At the same time, he eats and drinks from the Eucharistic meal at which he is presiding.

This functional clericalism declares: "Father matters most: the people can have what's left over."

This functional approach to the liturgy then clericalises the laity, who also see no need to receive from the Eucharistic Table on a Sunday.

Generally, because the laity has seen the functional clericalism of their priests, they, too, become functional in their approach to Sunday Liturgy and do not bother with the Sunday Mass because communion from the Tabernacle is just as good and more practical.

This functionalism lay at the heart of the online masses streamed during COVID-19.

What is evident from research and various inquiries is that the Church sees both clericalism and celibacy as part of the sacred structure of Catholic priesthood and religious life.

Because these are sacred elements, those who administer them work to protect them.

Often, this approach plays badly into the hands of institutional thinking, which determines how clerics are formed and how, in turn, they and the laity respond to specific pastoral needs.

In short, clericalism and celibacy are two critical influences on how the Catholic Church is administered and two guiding principles for deciding for whom the Church exists.

These various reports make it clear that we must listen to the voices of survivors, whose testimonies shed light on the deep-rooted issues within clerical culture.

Study findings

All the studies underscore the disturbing impact of a clerical mindset, which prioritises the institution over individuals' well-being.

This prioritisation manifests itself in protecting the Church's reputation at the expense of justice and accountability.

While celibacy has been implicated differently in each denomination, with Protestant congregations citing the influence of societal shifts in the 1960s and Catholicism facing internal challenges, the common thread remains clericalism.

In both cases, the hierarchical structure of the Church perpetuates a culture where abuse can be swept under the rug, shielded by a facade of righteousness.

Clericalism and celibacy are not immutable aspects of the priesthood; they are human constructs that have contributed to our systemic successes and failures.

The Church must reckon with these realities and prioritise its members' safety and well-being over preserving human traditions.

Functional clericalism perpetuates a harmful hierarchy that alienates both clergy and laity from the true spirit of the Christian community.

As we confront the sobering truths revealed by these studies, we must see reform as a continual and necessary imperative if the Church is to fulfil its sacred duty of ministering to the faithful.

It is time to dismantle the structures of clericalism that have allowed abuse to fester and embrace a vision of Christianity rooted in justice, compassion, and humility.

• Dr Joe Grayland is a visiting professor at the University of Tübingen (Germany). He has been a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North for nearly thirty years.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has expressed a heightened vigilance over the potential for mystical or spiritual elements to be exploited for abusive ends.

Speaking to OSV News, Cardinal Fernández spoke of "false mysticism" and outlined the Vatican's initiative to study and implement measures to forewarn and halt spiritual abuse.

"Today we are more attentive than before to the possibility of mystical or spiritual elements being used to take advantage of people and even abuse them" the Cardinal told OSV News.

This announcement comes amidst a backdrop of several high-profile cases that have shed light on the distortion of the Catholic faith and its mystical tradition by abusers to manipulate and coerce victims into sexual acts.

One such case involves Father Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit and renowned liturgical artist, whom multiple victims accused of using spiritual justification to facilitate abuse.

Similarly, Third Order Franciscan Father David Morrier, a former chaplain at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, faced allegations and subsequent legal action for sexual battery of a student under the guise of spiritual counselling and rites purportedly aimed at deliverance and exorcism.

The posthumous revelations concerning Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche communities and his mentor Dominican Father Thomas Philippe, further underscore the gravity of the issue.

An independent investigation commissioned by L'Arche International revealed that Vanier, Father Philippe and his brother Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, also a Dominican friar, manipulated spiritual beliefs to justify sexual abuse, invoking religious figures and concepts of divine union to coerce their victims.

These cases have prompted the Vatican's doctrinal office to take a proactive stance in preventing the exploitation of spirituality for abusive purposes.

By raising awareness and developing strategies to prevent such abuses, the Church aims to safeguard its followers from those who might pervert its teachings and rituals for nefarious ends.

Local interest

In late 2023, the Vatican responded to Bishop of Christchurch Michael Gielen's request for help dealing with unauthorised exorcisms and related spiritual abuse in the Diocese.

The retired bishop of Toowoomba, Robert McGuckin, has been tasked with conducting an Apostolic Visitation to investigate the allegations.

Following allegations of unauthorised exorcisms by the Latin Mass Trans-Alpine Redemptorists, Gielen suspended all exorcisms in the Christchurch diocese in August this year.

Yet despite the suspension order, Newshub alleges more unauthorised exorcisms and concerns about the wellbeing of young people have emerged.

Sources

• OSV
• CathNews

A series of scandals has been casting a shady light on some members.

The Community, which has links to New Zealand, is a 50-year-old French Catholic group. It was inspired by the Catholic Charismatic movement

Located in Leithfield, North Canterbury, the Beatitudes Community is in the Christchurch diocese. The group has been in New Zealand since 1994.

The Community of the Beatitudes is present in twenty-six countries.

It brings together in one spiritual family of sisters, brothers, priests, and married and single lay people. They all share a fraternal life, a life of prayer and mission with a purpose to follow Christ on the path of the Beatitudes.

Independent Commission announced

The group's recent general assembly in France agreed an Independent Commission was needed to investigate the abuse.

They were prompted by delegates discussing concerns about sexual abuse and abuse of conscience that may have taken place within the community.

Despite victims' "high expectations", no timetable for the investigation has yet been set.

We felt the time was right

"From the very first speeches [at the assembly], we felt the time was right for this review for which the community was not ready at the previous assembly four years ago," said Sister Lætitia du Cœur de Jésus, who is in charge of communications.

The Commission's aims are to shed light on serious shortcomings and deviances within the community.

The Commission will liaise with historian Tangi Cavalin. He has been investigating "the role of the Dominican institution" in dealing with the sexual and spiritual abuse committed by Dominican brothers Marie-Dominique and Thomas Philippe.

Cavalin has also been involved in the matter of the L'Arche Community and Jean Vanier.

Spiritual and sexual abuse

In 2011, the French Community of the Beatitudes admitted that its founder Gerard Croissant was a sexual abuser.

Then in 2013, the French bishops expressed surprise that "Spiritual abuse," had been inflicted by the lay founders, or religious superiors, using their aura and spiritual power often on young and fragile personalities.

Among those identified by the French bishops were fourteen new ecclesial (church) communities, including the Beatitudes Community.

Others, including The Legion of Christ, the Community of St John, and Hearts have seen formal charges of misconduct lodged primarily against their founders.

Victims considered

The Beatitudes Community international meeting also discussed measures to be taken for victims.

These measures include completing the contact details for listening centres indicated on the Community website.

Those at the meeting lso considered decisions that could be taken in the coming months, particularly concerning compensation.

Victims network

In addition, a network for Community of the Beatitudes victims was founded on October 9.

It was established after the new national canonical criminal tribunal said it had received "a canonical mandate from the dioceses of Albi, Saint-Dié and Toulouse."

The mandate is "to continue the preliminary investigation into various cases involving certain members of the Community of the Beatitudes."

Source

• La Croix

And it's not hard to see why: In the past decade, a slew of once-revered Christian leaders have been exposed for sexual violence or sexual misconduct: Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, Jean Vanier, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, and too many others to name.

But as director of teaching and care at The Allender Center, which offers care and training to help people heal from trauma, Chen knows that abuse has many forms.

And when sexual violence is committed by a faith leader, it's often accompanied by another form of violence that's harder to define: spiritual abuse.

Spiritual abuse is "a distortion and exploitation of spiritual authority to manipulate, control, use, or harm others, mostly through shame and fear," Chen told me in January 2023 during our conversation for Sojourners' Lead Us Not podcast.

"It's using vulnerability — it's using really good things to exploit."

Later, via email, Chen told me that warning signs of spiritual abuse include intolerance for questions and doubts, using the Bible to arouse fear and rigid "us vs. them" binaries, and leaders who demand unwavering loyalty, often threatening anyone who doesn't comply with being cut off from the community or God.

Spiritual abuse can also look like a leader who offers above-and-beyond care, but in ways that cross ethical, emotional, or spiritual boundaries.

This type of trauma, Chen wrote, often leaves victims "with traumatised bodies, disordered imagination and broken relationships, making the path to healing all the more challenging but certainly not impossible."

I included excerpts of my interview with Chen in episodes four and five of Lead Us Not, but the full conversation explored key questions about spiritual abuse, including how we can recognise and heal from it at both an individual and communal level.

"It's actually a really scary moment," she told me.

"Because it's one thing if you have an experience of spiritual abuse or sexual abuse, it's another thing when you start to see, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a whole pattern of behaviour.

"It's in the water … It's not just a person or one institution. There's something about the structures and about the ways in which we give power and empower certain spiritual authorities.'" Continue reading

• Jenna Barnett is senior associate culture editor at Sojourners.

This extremely serious act - which the Catholic Church of France euphemistically translated as "voyeurism" - is exactly what Bishop Michel Santier did when he was the director of a School of Faith and leader of a new community.

One is initially stunned after hearing of such abuse and perversion.

Then comes the anger.

How can a priest and future bishop - who has taken post-graduate courses in theology and has received a "solid" formation in seminaries aimed at preparing the "ruling class" of Catholicism - fall into such confusion, mixing sin, nudity, undisclosed sexual attraction and religion?

And then one thinks, not without a certain horror, that so much of the sexual abuse committed in the Church is a perversity that is sometimes based on a so-called spiritual vision of sexuality and the flesh, which questions the capacity to show, in the literal sense, an understanding of faith...

Certainly, sexuality - that is, the relationship one has with his or her own body and that of another - remains a complex matter.

Current events, from #MeToo movement to all the abuse cases, offer almost daily proof of this.

There is no reason why the Church should be spared, especially since it has a long tradition of rigid morality where everything related to sexuality has been considered evil.

But for more than half a century, the Church has been indulging in a groundless rhetoric that has not favoured - to say the least - a proper understanding of the sexual revolution and its implications that we are going through in the West.

This is not the least of the paradoxes for an incarnate religion like Christianity!

A certain "theology of the body", one that undoubtedly relies clumsily on the writings of John Paul II, has totally sublimated this relationship to the body.

It has made sexuality a kind of ideal, sacralized by a vision of marriage (conjugality) that is often overly theoretical.

It is a perspective that does not see all there can be in sexuality - dissatisfaction, failure, ambiguity, and, obviously, relationships based on power.

Sexuality can also be a place of great violence, especially among clerics who undergo an imposed chastity and exploit the confessional and their sacramental power to satisfy certain desires.

Here again, we must be careful not to generalise.

But why is there such an inability to speak of sexuality in its complexity, in its humanity, dare I say?

Why make it a kind of sacred place which opens the door to all forms of deviance?

Here again, the Church is not alone.

Such a reflection cannot be done in a vacuum.

On the contrary, the difficulty of holding a discussion about sexuality crosses all of society; one only has to see the way in which the pornographic industry has invaded the world of children.

It is a pity that, in view of the controversies and internal divisions on questions of homosexuality and, more broadly, on new sexual behaviours, the Church has deserted this field.

Its moral teachings have not confronted human sexuality in its complexity, its lights and shadows.

The apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, which Pope Francis published in 2016 following the two Synod assemblies on the family, opened the door to a more realistic vision, starting from people's real, lived experiences.

But it is still far too timid.

• Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Bishop Michel Santier (pictured), was quietly disciplined by the Vatican and, in 2021, he reported to his diocese he resigned for "health reasons".

However, the weekly Famille Chrétienne revealed Santier was also removed for "using his influence over two young adult men for sexual purposes" in the 1990s and abusing the sacrament of confession.

The Vatican ordered him to live "a life of prayer and penance" in an abbey in Normandy.

However, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun, Santier's metropolitan archbishop, announced last week that "other people" have since had come forward with allegations against Santier.

They claim the retired bishop had sexually abused them when they were young adults.

"Yesterday (October 19) after having heard directly from one of these victims, I immediately sent a report to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith via the apostolic nunciature," Lebrun said.

"There is no doubt that the dicastery will conduct a new investigation in the face of revelations that accentuate the seriousness of the facts of which Bishop Michel Santier is accused."

Santier resigned from his post two years earlier than the customary age of 75.

In a letter to his flock in June 2020, he explained that "the polluted air of the Paris region" did not suit him and had led to diagnoses of asthma and sleep apnoea.

He had been hospitalised with COVID-19 in April that year.

"I don't have the physical strength to continue my ministry among you until I am 75 years old", he said at the time. He also hinted he had undergone "other difficulties," but didn't specify what these were.

These difficulties, Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne reported earlier this month, were linked to the "spiritual abuse for sexual purposes perpetrated against two adult men" in the 1990s.

French bishops confirmed that Rome took "disciplinary action" against Santier in October 2021 for the acts, which emerged in 2019. The two men asked to remain anonymous.

Last Friday, the French bishops' conference president, Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, acknowledged the revelations had provoked "shock" among French Catholics.

"The feeling of betrayal, the temptation to be discouraged are emotions that I understand and that run through us, as well as the incomprehension and anger of many before the acts themselves," he said.

"I also hear and receive the criticisms made about the lack of communication of the Roman measures when they were enacted.

"There can be no impunity in the Church, regardless of the function of the person involved."

Moulins-Beaufort said the French bishops would be reflecting on the way investigation results are communicated to Catholics when they meet at their plenary assembly in Lourdes next week.

"We will bring to Rome the fruit of our reflections and our proposals to improve what can be improved," he said.

French Catholics have learned of a series of abuse scandals in recent years.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) concluded in 2021 that as many as 330,000 children were abused from 1950 to 2020 in the French Catholic Church.

The French bishops then promised to undertake "a vast programme of renewal" of their governance practices.

Source

• The Pillar
• The Tablet

Spanish Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, spoke about his office's work overseeing religious congregations in an interview July 30 with Vida Nueva, a Spanish weekly magazine on religion.

The most common allegations involve abuse of power or conscience, financial corruption or problems associated with "affectivity," Carballo said.

He said the church has very "clear and precise criteria" in discerning the authenticity of a religious charism when determining whether to approve a new congregation or religious order.

Among these criteria, he underlined: "Communion with the church; the presence of spiritual fruits; the social dimension of evangelization; high regard for other forms of consecrated life in the church; and the profession of the Catholic faith."

"Sadly, it must be confessed that, at times, it is difficult to discover the authenticity and originality of a charism in some realities," the archbishop said.

He said that the congregation is currently investigating about a dozen founders of institutes that come under his office's authority.

"In most cases, these are associations whose canonical recognition is underway," he said without naming the founders or the communities involved.

However, he said, in addition to that number, some institutes had already been canonically recognized. Some whose founders are being investigated, too, "so the number increases significantly."

"All of this does a lot of damage to consecrated life and to the church itself," he said. "Therefore, much more attention should be paid when discerning the need, benefit and usefulness for the church. Especially when approving associations whose canonical recognition is underway."

It is a bishop's right to approve such associations, he said. "But it is also a grave responsibility," and discernment is needed.

Sources

Crux

Figueroa is a lecturer in Systematic Theology at the Catholic Institute of Aotearoa New Zealand in Auckland.

To understand the underlying causes of abuse the Church needs to rethink its ts power structure and concept of leadership, she said.

If the Church were to rethink its ts power structure and concept of leadership, it would be a start, she says.

"Whenever there has been sexual abuse in the Church, you could see that there was first a spiritual abuse."

Figueroa is also a former member of the Marian Community of Reconciliation (the women's branch of the Peru-based Soldalitium Christianae Vitae - SCV).

She was among the speakers addressing an online course on abuse prevention in priestly formation settings

In 2017, the Vatican sanctioned the SCV founder after accusations of sexually abusing several minors and physical and psychological abuse of community members.

All the victims talk about spiritual abuse, Figueroa said.

"They are always together, spiritual abuse and sexual abuse."

Spiritual abuse "has never been addressed [in the Catholic Church]," she said.

"You see lots of courses about sexual abuse prevention, but nothing about this systemic problem. You also have to ask yourself why the system has allowed sexual abuse to happen?"

Figueroa said spiritual abuse happens when anyone who holds some sort of spiritual authority over another and uses that power to control them rather than helping them grow.

A superior telling a subordinate to do something because ‘this is the will of God,' is an example of this, she said.

People can commit spiritual abuse without realizing it, largely due to the lack of preparation and maturity in those tasked with formation, she said.

Part of the problem is a misguided understanding of obedience, she said.

In the Catholic Church, obedience is understood "in a vertical way, where the one who has the authority is the word of God; it's a very vertical dimension and you have to just obey."

This, opens the door to other forms of abuse, including sexual abuse. It is one of the underlying causes of abuse.

Many who enter religious communities make vows of obedience, "but they don't promise to be authentic and to follow myself and my conscience.

"This is as important as the vow of obedience."

Clericalism is another major issue, Figueroa raised.

"Every person in the Church has to be accountable, because sometimes authorities in the Church are not accountable. They do anything they want to do."

This is especially true for women, Figueroa said.

Women religious are especially dependent on their male superiors.

"We have structural problems. For me, they are all together. If you put clericalism, sexism, and the situation of women together, it's like a bomb."

In her view, "the servant leader" is the best choice to counter spiritual abuse.

The servant-leader "first wants to serve, and then wants to lead generates another type of leadership in which the person who leads does not look for power, but really looks out for the good of the people."

Source

• CruxNow
• Image: YouTube