Safeguarding, Power, and Vulnerability
Many safeguarding guidelines in the Catholic Church present vulnerability as belonging to individuals—like children or adults with developmental disabilities—rather than belonging to the pastoral relationship itself (Leimgruber, 2022).
This is a real problem.
By presenting vulnerability this way, these policies give the impression that
vulnerability is a deficiency in a person, and
it fails to account for the vulnerability of every individual seeking out pastoral care.
In reality, vulnerability is a condition of the pastoral relationship because I'm trusting the person ministering to me and, to some degree, opening my heart to them. This is the kind of vulnerability present anytime a person trusts another person, and it's not a deficiency. Fr. Fernández says:
“Openness to the master—a necessary condition of discipleship—places the disciple in a condition of vulnerability. Obviously, vulnerable adults should be especially protected from abuse. However, I now speak about the radical vulnerability that belongs to every human being who trusts in another person. The disciple opens his or her conscience to a master who has an ecclesiastical support and, in the face of sacred power, instinctive resistance gives way. Therefore, this kind of vulnerability is not to be seen as a deficiency of the disciple, but a necessary condition of discipleship, which always implies an asymmetrical relationship” (Fernández, 2021).
Further by limiting vulnerability to only children and adults with developmental disabilities, many people are left unprotected by these policies because they fail to hold ministers accountable to ensure the safety of everyone they minister to.
With great power comes great responsibility. Pastoral relationships always have an imbalance of power, which means the person being ministered to is always vulnerable. This dynamic is especially true in the Catholic Church because leadership has an ecclesial endorsement. Again, from Fr. Fernández:
“Catholic leaders have authority over believers because the Church supports them as its representatives. The believers then place their trust in the leaders on account of the Church’s support, that is, because the Catholic Church presents them as trustworthy” (Fernández, 2021).
It is the responsibility of the person with authority to recognize the power they have and to use it solely for the good of the other, avoiding all—even unintentionally—harm. This is explicitly spelled out in the Dicastery for Evangelization’s “Directory for Catechesis: Guidelines for Catechesis and Universal Norms to Guide Evangelization.”
The following passage specifically refers to the conduct of catechists, but it easily applies to all positions of ministerial leadership (emphasis mine):
“The catechist, on account of his service, holds a position relative to the people he accompanies in the faith and is perceived by them as a point of reference, who exercises a certain form of authority. It therefore becomes necessary that this role be lived out with the most absolute respect for the conscience and person of the other, avoiding every kind of abuse, whether of power, of conscience, financial, or sexual. Catechists, in their programs of formation and through an honest dialogue with their spiritual guides, should be helped to identify the correct ways of living out their authority solely as service of their brothers. Moreover, in order not to betray the trust of the persons assigned to them, they should be able to distinguish between the external forum and the internal forum and should learn to have great respect for the sacred freedom of the other, without violating or manipulating this in any way” (Directory for Catechesis 142).
It’s clear from the Directory that clerics and ministers need to:
Recognize the authority they hold and the power imbalance inherent int heir work with others
Embrace the responsibility that comes from that authority and have “the most absolute respect for the conscience and person of the other” and their “sacred freedom”
Ensure that their authority is used solely for the good of the other
Have a high level of self-reflection and self-awareness
Have intentional mentorship and accountability in this area
The norm for other helping professions, including my own, is that I must recognize the power imbalance between myself and my client and embrace the responsibility to do no harm, even inadvertent harm. We need to embrace, teach, and enforce this ethical norm in the Catholic Church.
If you want more information about spiritual abuse, I have workshops and talks I can present for your parish, seminary, catechist formation, priest convocation, diaconate formation, religious community, etc. Email me at paul@faheycounseling.com if you want more information.
Sources:
Fernández, S. (2021). Towards a Definition of Abuse of Conscience in the Catholic Setting. Gregorianum, 102(3): 557–74.
Fernández, S. (2022). Victims are not guilty! spiritual abuse and ecclesiastical responsibility. Religions (Basel, Switzerland ), 13(5), 427.
Leimgruber, U. (2022). Vulnerance of Pastoral Care. Religions, 13(3), 256.
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