Counseling, Spiritual Abuse, and the Sacred Heart

A life update

I’ll start with the ending: I’m a newly licensed counselor.

This past week, the State of Michigan informed me that I was officially a Limited License Counselor (LLC). And soon I will be starting as a therapist at Spring Forest Counseling and Wellness in Okemos, MI.

Even though I’ve been preparing for this for three years, this is new for me. For most of my life it was difficult to imagine not working for the Church.

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I’ve probably shared this before, but the summer before I started college I went to a Steubenville Youth Conference. Jesus showed up for me in a personal way there, and brought me tremendous healing and freedom. That retreat was so transformative that, once I started school, I studied Theology (rather than Political Science) in order to work in ministry and help others experience the same healing and freedom.

Two years after I graduated I was hired as a full-time minister at Most Holy Trinity parish. I loved so much of my work there: the conversations, the teaching, the preaching, and the writing. It was a privilege to be invited into the sufferings and joys of others and to play a small role in helping them encounter the transforming love of God. I believed that ministry was my vocation.

But, after seven years, I decided to go back to school for a counseling degree. For a long time I had considered going back to school for a graduate degree in Theology or Pastoral Ministry, but none of those programs were a good fit. Then, out of the blue, I came across an advertisement for the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (MAC) Program at Aquinas College. I sent the ad to a friend saying, “I think you could be really good at this.” And they replied, “So would you.” All the right practical things fell into place, so I applied.

I looked up a Facebook post I wrote at the time where I shared my reasons for starting the program. One motivation was my own experiences of depression and religious deconstruction, and how difficult it was to go through that when my entire life—my family, my vocation, and my income—were directly tied in with the Church. Another was my desire to integrate mental health and ministry. I wrote:

“Not only do I see mental health counseling itself as a way for people to find healing and freedom, but beyond that, the knowledge and skills I would acquire in this program would only improve the ministry that I will do in the Church.

My long-term goal is to provide mental health counseling for Catholics, and most especially, fellow Catholic ministers.

I see a real need among Catholic ministers, lay and ordained, for mental health counseling that would give them the space to process any doubts or spiritual deconstruction they may be experiencing and help them find real healing, for their own sake, but also so they can thrive in their vocations and serve others more effectively.”

Three years later, I have those same goals and desires as a counselor, only now they are a little more specific.

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What I didn’t know when I started the MAC program, was that six months later I (along with all of the lay ministry staff at my parish) would be suddenly and unexpectedly leaving my full-time ministry job due to my pastor—and boss—abusing his power in some really public and ugly ways.

The job I saw as a vocation ended, almost overnight. And despite the public nature of my former pastor’s behavior, nobody in my diocese redressed those wrongs or held my pastor accountable for his actions. The people who were supposed to protect me and my colleagues, people who I had known for years, didn’t.

The abuse and betrayal radically changed my relationship with the Church. So have the grace and truth and healing that I encountered since. Those experiences allowed me to hear—to really hear and believe in ways I didn’t before—other people’s stories of harm and abuse in the Church.

In the middle of all this, I did one of the things I do best: study. I started researching spiritual abuse and eventually wrote an article titled, “The Place Where You Stand is Holy Ground: Recognizing and Preventing Spiritual Abuse in the Catholic Church.”

That article opened the door to so many conversations and connections with others who are working to bring justice for survivors and helping the Church better respect human dignity. Those connections, in turn, have clarified my goals and desires for the work I want to do as a counselor.

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As a counselor, I'm able to work with any adult seeking counseling, but I'm especially interested in working with clients who have experienced harm and betrayal in the Church and who are trying to figure out what happened and how to move forward. In particular, I want to work with lay ministers and clergy who have had these experiences. In many ways, being a minister puts you in a more vulnerable position to be harmed because of how much your vocation, identity, and income are dependent on Church leadership.

As a catechist and mental health professional, I also want to provide formation for leaders in the Church about spiritual abuse in order to help these leaders recognize and prevent spiritual abuse; know the harm that spiritual abuse can cause; respond to individuals who have been spiritually abused; and promote structural changes to make their communities safer.

And I’ve already been able to start some of this work!

Since I graduated a month ago, I started two workshops about spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church, I gave a presentation for all the abbots and abbesses of the Trappists communities in the US about spiritual abuse and abuse of conscience, and in July I will be one of the facilitators for Awake’s annual summer retreat for survivors of abuse in the Church.

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If you, or someone you know, lives in Michigan and are looking for a counselor who can help you through your painful experiences in the Church, I'm able to see clients in-person in Okemos or any Michigan resident through video telehealth. Here's the link to my bio at Spring Forest: https://springforestcounseling.com/provider/paul-fahey-counselor-okemos/

If you would like me to come and give a presentation or lead a workshop about spiritual abuse for your ministry team, priest convocation, seminary, religious community, etc., email me at: paul@faheycounseling.com

This is all a huge and exciting step for me and my family.

I’m so grateful to Kristina, for all the nights she made dinner and put the kids to bed while I went to class over the past three years. And for the countless ways she supported me and all the time and energy this program took. I’m also thankful to my dad, and all our family, who supported and encouraged us. This was very much a family endeavor.

When I left my job at the parish, we didn’t have a backup plan. But somehow, despite living nearly month-to-month off of Kristina’s and my side gigs so I could keep going to school full time, we made it.

This was in no small part due to the support of our family. And also the support of people in our community (local and extended) who at times shocked us with their generosity over the past two years. And, I believe, because of St. Joseph. Nearly every day for the past two years I’ve asked St. Joseph to pray for our family that we would have enough income that I could keep going to school full time and that Kristina and I wouldn’t need to find a job outside the house. And it was so.

And please pray for me.

I feel humbled and, in some ways, inadequate for the work I’ve already started. Intellectually I know that I can step up and do these things, and do them well. But also, I know that I cannot rely on my own strength and skills. The Lord needs to lead this for it to be fruitful, for it to be good. And I need to be more dependent on Him to lead.  

Recently, I’ve felt that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is accompanying me in this next stage. So, if you’re inclined, please pray for Christ to make my heart more like his Sacred Heart, so that others may experience his love, healing, and freedom through me.

Sacred Heart of Jesus by Kristina Fahey

“Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings without exception” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 478)