Ministerial Standards & Safe Environment

Drawing from psychological research and the Church's teaching on human dignity, this presentation with Paul Fahey and Thomas Berg will help attdees define, recognize, and respond to spiritual abuse and religious trauma.

For adult survivors of clergy abuse, the harm does not end when the abuse does. It lives in the body, in the mind, and in the soul, reshaping who a person understands themselves to be and leaving their relationships with God, their faith, and loved ones forever changed.

Human beings are hardwired for survival, including powerful and intense reactions of fear. Survival is a gift, but we sometimes get stuck. For many survivors of abuse, and even for their multi-generational families and institutional cultures, fear can remain an invisible driving force long after the threat has passed.