The Less Presentable Parts Also Belong

During one of my spiritual abuse workshops last year, a question was raised about if it’s better to say “abused by the Church” rather than “abused in the Church” or “abuse by individuals in the Church.” This question came to my mind as I read the Second Reading at Mass yesterday.

In my writing and speaking, I find myself using all of these phrases at different times. I think each of them reveal truth, both about survivors experiences and about the nature of the Church.

Some survivors of spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church describe their experience as being abused by the Church. This is because of their beliefs about the sacramental identity and authority of the priest who harmed them and the bishop who betrayed them. They believe that the clerics who abused them represented and acted on behalf of Christ and the Church.

This isn’t an unreasonable belief. The Catechism teaches that the priest “is truly made like to [Christ] the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself” (CCC 1548). Further, spiritual abuse can cause an individual to believe that God and the Church condoned the abuse they suffered, or that God himself abused them (Fernández, 2022; Panchuk, 2018).

In short, survivors who describe their abuse as being harmed by the Church itself are expressing real aspects of the experience of spiritual abuse.

I’ve heard other survivors of spiritual abuse describe their experience as being harmed in the Church or by individuals in the Church. In other words, they go out of their way to distinguish the Church from the individuals who abused them.

Some survivors have said this because they believe that they themselves—as a baptized Christian—are the Church. They do not want their abuser, even if the abuser is a priest or bishop, to take that identity away from them. In fact, some survivors have explicitly said that they believe that Christ is closer to those who are oppressed by the powerful than he is to the religious leaders abusing their power.

And again, this is also perfectly reasonable. The Catechism says that baptism makes someone a part of the Body of Christ to such an extent that they are “other Christs” (Cf. CCC 1267 and 2782). Further, the Church teaches that Christ has a preferential love for the poor and oppressed and explicitly identifies himself with “the vulnerable, the most insignificant, the outcast, the oppressed, the discarded, the poor, the marginalized, the unlearned, the sick, and those who are downtrodden by the powerful” (Dignitas Infinita 12).

Personally, as someone who has been spiritually abused, I resonate with all of these descriptions and oscillate between them depending on the context or, honestly, what feels most significant for me that day.

All of that came to mind for me yesterday at Mass when I read the second reading from 1 Corinthians. There, St. Paul said:

“If a foot should say,
‘Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,’
it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.
Or if an ear should say,
'Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,’
it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?
If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?”

I’ve shared before about feeling increasing alienation in the Church. I often feel like the ear or the foot, the part that doesn’t belong because I no longer celebrate Catholicism like I used to, go to Catholic events like I used to, or even enjoy going to Mass like I used to. I look at the Catholic communities that once felt like home and say to myself, “I do not belong.”

Recently, I’ve only felt belonging when I’m with others who share about similar wounds and levels of disaffection with Catholicism. For example, after helping to facilitate Awake’s retreat for survivors of sexual abuse in the Church last summer, I wrote:

“Early in the weekend I shared some of my own struggles attending my home parish (or any Catholic parish). The abuse that has occurred in the Church—sexual, spiritual, or otherwise—feels like a giant crater in the middle of the church. Yet so often it feels like everyone is pretending it isn’t there. Going to Mass can feel like participating in a group pretending, a reenactment of the story of the Emperor with No Clothes. But at the retreat I was able to talk with others, pray with others, and be with others who see that crater, refuse to ignore it and walk around it, but who still desire faith and community.”

Another example of belonging came from a friend—someone whose Vocation and clothing were signs of Catholicism—who was visiting my home last year who candidly said, “Sometimes I just hate being around Catholics.” I can’t tell you how much of a consolation that was.

St. Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians was a validating reminder that yes, I do belong.

I belong to the Church, even when some of the other parts seem to be trying to push me out. The realities of harm and betrayal in the stories of survivors reveal the cancers that are in the Body, and this makes some of the other parts feel uncomfortable or threatened. St. Paul continues:

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you,’
nor again the head to the feet, ‘I do not need you.’
Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker
are all the more necessary,
and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable
we surround with greater honor,
and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety,
whereas our more presentable parts do not need this.
But God has so constructed the body
as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,
so that there may be no division in the body,
but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.”

However, St. Paul also challenged me. I too at times want to cut off other parts of the body. Because the hands and eyes, those who are defensive or uncomfortable with survivors, are also a part of the Body.

They also belong.

While those parts often fail—often perpetuate the cancers of clericalism and abuse of power in the Church—they also belong to the Body. St. Paul is saying that the Body would be less without them. I would be less without them. Somehow, in some way, those parts also have something to teach me.

Sources cited:

• Fernández, S. (2022). Victims are not guilty! spiritual abuse and ecclesiastical responsibility. Religions (Basel, Switzerland ), 13(5), 427.

• Panchuk, M. (2018). The Shattered Spiritual Self: A Philosophical Exploration of Religious Trauma. Res Philosophica, 95(3), 505-530.