Learn About Spiritual Abuse in a Catholic Setting (Resource Sharing)

Hello everyone. Happy new year. I just wanted to pop on briefly to share a time sensitive resource with you. 

Now, if you are on the inner, healing journey and you are learning about trauma and how it impacts your relationship with God. One of the most important topics to learn about is spiritual abuse. It's also probably one of the heaviest topics that we could learn about.

[00:31] The Impact of Trauma on Faith
Okay, so all kinds of trauma can obscure the face of God. All kinds of trauma can make it difficult for us to develop a secure attachment with God. But I think the kind of trauma that is particularly insidious and destructive when it comes to  building this relationship with God, developing trust in God.. would be spiritual trauma and, spiritual trauma, well, where does it come from? Uh, it comes a lot from spiritual abuse.

But the problem is most of us probably don't have the language of spiritual abuse. So when you don't have the language, you can't name something. So even if you experience spiritual abuse, you don't know that it's happening to you. And you might have some experience, like, um, some feeling of ickiness. You might feel violated. You might feel that something's wrong, right? But when you can't name something, it almost makes it seem like it's not real. I mean, how hard is it? How hard is it to talk about something if you don't have the language for it? Right?

So spiritual abuse is particularly insidious because those of us who are fervent about our faith, who take our faith seriously. I think in some sense it's, it could actually be more likely to be victims of spiritual abuse and more likely to be perpetrators of spiritual abuse because spiritual abuse can be so subtle and so insidious that it is woven into like the larger culture.. Could be a familial culture, it could be a church culture.

[02:14] Reasons to Learn About Spiritual Abuse
So three reasons why spiritual abuse is something important for us to learn about. This is from my experience, okay.

Just briefly, first reason, like I already mentioned: it really distorts who God is to us. It becomes a huge obstacle. Spiritual abuse erects like these walls, okay, between us and God and makes it so much harder for us to develop secure attachment with God. So we should learn about spiritual abuse to be able to identify these obstacles and to learn how to heal from spiritual abuse in our own lives.

Secondly, if we don't know what spiritual abuse is, and it has become part of like the larger experience that we have about growing up Catholic, for example, or being actively involved in church, we will at some point inadvertently, perpetuate spiritual abuse. We will repeat the cycle. We will do unto others what has been done to us.

And a lot of times it could be done without our awareness that this is actually happening. So we would be inflicting harm on the body of Christ without our full awareness. Okay. We would still be complicit. Even if we didn't really intend to do it, that's something that's very important for us to, to grapple with, to make our peace with, I think to allow ourselves to be confronted with, to ask forgiveness for,  from God, and if possible, from the people that we've done it to in the past. But really, I mean, it begins with us being able to recognize spiritual abuse, right? So that's the second reason.

[03:58] The Systemic Nature of Spiritual Abuse
The third reason why I would argue it's really important for us to learn about spiritual abuse is because, because it's already systemic. 

I'm speaking from a place of having learned, you know, quite a great deal about spiritual abuse in the past year, even though I'd say I'm still probably at the beginning, I'm still learning about spiritual abuse, but going from zero, like not knowing anything about spiritual abuse to beginning to learn about it, it has just opened so many things up.

Right. And I think being able to recognize where the waters around us are not safe is so important. Especially if you are a person in some kind of position of authority. Maybe you're a parent, um, you're a ministry leader, you're a spiritual director, you're a formator of some sorts, or you're somebody, maybe you're in religious life or, you know, you're a seminarian or an ordained member of the clergy. All the more, I think.. Beginning to recognize how the reality of spiritual abusive dynamics is already woven into the culture that we are part of, both church culture as well as our, possibly our local culture, when it has been intertwined with religion and faith. That is a huge part.. of being accountable and responsible as leaders.

[05:25] Introducing a Valuable Resource
So if any of these reasons resonate with you, I hope that you will be interested in this resource that I want to share with you. So it's a workshop on spiritual abuse. It's meant to help us recognize, prevent, and respond to spiritual abuse specifically in the Catholic Church, okay, in the Catholic context.

That's what's unique about this resource for me because most of the resources that I have availed myself to up to this point have come from non-Catholic sources. It's just because I think  there aren't really, really resources on this in the Catholic church that I'm aware of. And this workshop is going to be given by Paul Fahey. Okay. So Paul is someone that I kind of like discovered just a couple of months ago. And I've had the privilege of having a few conversations with him over Zoom across time difference between, you know, where he is in the U.S. and me in Singapore.

His podcast, The Third Space podcast, where he talks very frankly about both the good and the harm that can be experienced in the Catholic Church has been very healing for me, where I am in my journey, where I've been grappling with the realities of dysfunction, toxicity and abuse in my own life, in my own religious experience as a Catholic. Both as someone who have, who has received it, or been on the receiving end of it, and as someone who has done it to others and been complicit because I was part of the system.

[06:56] Personal Reflections and Endorsements
Anyway, I just want to say that I think Paul is an incredible resource. I do not recommend resources lightly. One of the things I take pride in is that, you know, the resources that I share, they really are helpful to people, right? They have to have been helpful to me. So while I have not actually attended this particular workshop, I'm confident enough through my exposure to Paul's podcast and the conversations I've had with Paul and what Paul has written to know that he is somebody who isn't just, talking the talk. He's walking the walk.

He has grappled with these questions himself. He has suffered, into truth himself. He has been someone who you could say as or had, has had the scales dropped from, from his eyes, been on the receiving end of spiritual abuse, also come to recognize how he had been complicit in and done it to others. So I personally feel, uh, you know, it has been a huge blessing for me to encounter Paul. And I just wanted to share this resource with you because I, I don't know when he might run this workshop again.

[08:14] How to Join the Workshop
So if you want to find out more about this spiritual abuse workshop, make sure you check the show notes.

I'm going to, I'm going to drop the link for this YouTube video, as well as in the podcast episode in the show notes. So make sure you find out more about this workshop, about Paul, et cetera. And if you happen to sign up for the workshop and we happen to be in the same time slot, give me a shout when we are there on Zoom.

[08:40] Final Thoughts and Farewell
All right, well take care. And until the next time, bye.