Moral Injury: The Unexpected Wounds of Sexual Abuse in the Church
It’s little surprise to members of the Awake community that the twin crises of sexual abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church have caused grave wounds, especially for victim-survivors of abuse. But recent research by Catholic moral theologian Marcus Mescher and his colleagues at Xavier University in Cincinnati sheds new light on some of the ways these crises have injured the Church.
A practicing Catholic born and raised in Milwaukee and then Mequon, where he attended the parish now known as Lumen Christi, Mescher previously shared his work with Awake in a September 2021 talk, “A Body of Broken Bones: The Ripple Effects of Abuse on the Body of Christ.” The talk focused on the concept of moral injury, a term originally used to describe the moral anguish suffered by soldiers in the aftermath of war.
Mescher explains moral injury as “a persistent state of psychological distress, spiritual anguish or torment, and moral confusion that produces a lot of shame and futility, disorientation to God and the good, and alienation from other people.” This pain is triggered by a “profound betrayal, an abuse of sacred trust,” and can be particularly devastating. “One survivor described the experience of abuse like being a dirty rag that no amount of bleach could clean,” he offers.
Much is at stake because moral injury alters the moral conscience, limits agency, and impairs relationships, Mescher says. While moral injury is most acute in survivors, “one of the goals of this project was to also see to what extent moral injury would be present in nonsurvivors,” he explains.
A “FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND” INSTRUMENT
Working with a team that included a sociologist, research psychologist, and trauma-informed theologian, Mescher helped create a “first-of-its-kind” instrument to measure the extent of moral injury in the aftermath of clergy abuse. The project was funded by Fordham University through their initiative, Taking Responsibility: Jesuit Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Clergy Sexual Abuse.
This survey asked about the test-taker’s religious beliefs, their awareness of clergy sexual abuse in the Church, and their exposure to “potentially morally injurious events.” Other questions measured the test-taker’s levels of shame, disorientation, futility, betrayal, and their trust in moral institutions such as the Church.
The researchers gave the survey to 389 people, including college students at a Jesuit university, former and current church employees, and people who identify as clergy sexual abuse survivors. A later phase of the study involved 15 in-depth, qualitative interviews of survivors. Mescher and his colleagues connected with the survivors through support groups run by Awake, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Mescher notes that the researchers struggled to engage church employees. “It was the hardest thing in the world to get present or former church employees to complete the survey,” he says. “I sent the survey to dozens of parish staff around the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and most people declined.” Although the survey was anonymous, “they didn’t think their pastor would approve, or they were worried how their pastor would respond if he knew they participated,” he adds. Most of the 44 church employees who agreed to take part were based in other dioceses.
Analysis of the survey results revealed that the instrument did reliably measure moral injury. Not surprisingly, survivors experienced the highest levels of moral injury, followed by the college students. Mescher was surprised that church employees exhibited the lowest levels of moral injury of the groups surveyed. “The only way that I can explain that is betrayal trauma, or people who struggle to process what it means to be … working for a Church that is responsible for these wounds and hasn’t done enough to center survivors and to try to redress the harm that’s been done,” he says. Mescher believes more research is needed to understand what exactly what is happening in this group. “How are people coping? Is it something more than denial?” he asks.
Theologian Marcus Mescher
A PROBLEM OF THE PRESENT MOMENT
Another surprise: Among the current students who took the survey, six identified as survivors of clergy sexual abuse. “That was not something I was anticipating,” Mescher says, “but it’s an important reminder that survivors are everywhere. I think most people, when they think of a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, think of a white Irish Catholic boy who was an altar server.” The students did not fit that profile.
The study findings also countered the idea that sexual abuse in the Church is limited to the time period before the Boston Globe’s Spotlight stories or the arrival of the Dallas Charter in 2002. “This is still an institution that is protecting priests and keeping survivors in the shadows,” Mescher says.
And despite growing awareness about sexual abuse, church leaders still do respond to survivors in hurtful ways. During one of the in-depth interviews, a survivor who was abused by a priest when she was six described finally working up the courage in adulthood to share her story with her bishop. “The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Well, you must have been pretty developed for a six-year-old to catch the eye of a priest,’” Mescher recounts. “There’s so many indications that the Church still hasn’t gotten this right, still doesn’t know what it means to center survivors or to be sensitive to their pain.”
A PARTICULAR PAIN
Mescher was sad to learn that many of the survivors he and his colleagues interviewed never told their parents about the abuse they suffered, out of a fear that they would not be believed, or that the news would devastate family members. “It was striking how many of the survivors took on the role of a protector, and kept the truth from their siblings, their parents,” he says. “When I think of moral injury, I think of a moral loneliness that is unique to survivors. They are people who are isolated and many feel a profound emptiness,” which makes this a wound distinct from PTSD, he says.
He notes that survivors who have joined support programs like those available through Awake or the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis tended to be farther along in their healing journey. “They’ve connected to other survivors, and they are believed, they are understood, and there is a real sense of support and solidarity that I think is essential for any kind of moral or spiritual or psychological repair,” Mescher says.
LIKE THIRD-HAND SMOKE?
Mescher is currently writing a book that will not only describe this research but also dive into a deeper exploration of the types of moral injury in the Church. For example, does the wound differ if a person was abused as a child or an adult? And what does moral injury look like for the loved ones of survivors, as well as the people who are part of the wider community?
This last group, Mescher suggests, are somewhat like those exposed to third-hand smoke, the toxic residue that lingers in carpets and furnishings long after the smoker has put out their cigarette. Exposure to these particles is not as severe as actually smoking but can still cause harm. “I’m also interested in the third-hand moral injury of people who aren’t survivors, who aren’t in relationship with survivors, but still feel a sense of betrayal or don’t fully trust clergy or the Church,” Mescher says. “These are the people who wrestle with their place in the Church right now. I think there is probably a high degree of moral injury not only among lay Catholics, but also a huge percentage in the more than 30 million former Catholics in this country who feel like they want nothing to do with this institution.”
Similarly, he is concerned about the “profound sense of betrayal and broken trust” that he and his colleagues saw among the non-survivor students at Catholic universities that they surveyed. As a professor in a Catholic college classroom for about a decade, Mescher believes students may be less likely to “go to the Church as a source of wisdom or moral guidance.”
Mescher and his colleagues view this work as a pilot study, akin to the first leg of a relay race. They aim to pass the baton to others. “We’re hoping that our research and publications will inspire other scholars or clinicians or counselors,” he explains, adding that he is heartened by graduate students who are also working on related questions.
Mescher says he is grateful to survivors in the Awake community who participated in the project: “We would not have been able to complete this study without Awake. Thanks to what survivors have shared with us, we have a better understanding of the wounds survivors carry, which will help improve steps toward healing.”
—Erin O’Donnell, Editor, Awake Blog
For a copy of the Xavier University report on moral injury, visit https://www.xavier.edu/moral-injury-report/. For more on moral injury, see this book chapter on the topic, written by Marcus Mescher.
