(OSV News) — The Vatican’s doctrinal chief told OSV News that his office is working to “raise awareness and prevent” Catholic spirituality as a means of abuse.
“Today, we are more attentive than ever before to the possibility that mystical or spiritual elements can be used to exploit and even abuse people,” said Victor, Director of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Manuel Fernández told OSV News. Email from February 6th.
The cardinal described such tactics as “false mysticism” and said his cardinal was “studying how to warn of danger in time and how to stop it.”
The high-profile case reveals how the Catholic faith and its mystical traditions have been twisted by abusers to manipulate victims and coerce them into sexual acts.
One of the many alleged victims of former Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik told Italian media outlet Domani in December that the famous liturgical artist “would not be with me or I would have no possessions.” “In the image of the love of the Trinity, one can experience bodily belonging to God in freedom, without possessing any.”
Third Order Franciscan Father David Morier, former chaplain at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, pleaded guilty in 2022 to sexually assaulting a student he counseled at the university several years ago and was charged with rape. He was acquitted of the charges and received five years’ probation as part of his sentence. About dealing with prosecutors. The victim told the court that Father Morier, who was banned from campus in 2014, made him undergo “deliverance sessions” and “exorcisms.” In this ritual, she was “forced to endure the violation of me at the hands of[Father Morier]because ‘this is a sin.'” What God revealed to him in prayer. . ”
“He told me that the sacraments had healing power and grace, but he brought his own perverted desires into what was supposed to be a sacred encounter with God,” she told the judge. Ta.
Jean Vanier, a Catholic social activist and founder of the L’Arche community, was accused of abusing several women under the guise of “sexual mysticism” that he harbored under the tutelage of his mentor, the late Dominican priest Thomas Philippe. It was discovered after his death. Father Vanier and Father Philippe, along with Father Thomas’ brother and Dominican friar Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, are the subject of an independent investigation commissioned by L’Arche International, which includes nearly 900 pages in January 2023. This was revealed in the report. How they invoked union with Jesus, Mary, and God as a means of justifying sexual abuse.
Recently, clergy abuse survivors Faith Hexley and Teresa Pitt-Green told OSV News that Cardinal Fernández’s recently resurfaced 1998 book “La pasión mística: espiritualidad y sensualidad” (“Mystical Passion”) “Spirituality and sensuality”) may be used. by predators to facilitate abuse.
Haxley and Pitt-Green stressed that they were not accusing the cardinal himself of abuse. Cardinal Fernández has said in at least two interviews, including one with OSV News, that he stopped publishing the book shortly after it was published for fear of being misunderstood. He emphasized that he has no intention of writing such a book now, and told OSV News that he had bought and destroyed the first copy of the work.
Cardinal Fernández said in a Feb. 6 email to OSV News that the State Department is “currently reviewing its standards regarding the identification of supernatural phenomena and has identified several considerations related to the particular significance of these risks.” It certainly needs to be included.”
In addition to protecting faith and moral teachings, the State Department oversees norms for identifying putative apparitions and revelations.
Regarding the review of the norms, Cardinal Fernández said: “I am particularly interested in this point, because it is an issue that raises our awareness and also helps prevent (abuse).”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow @GinaJesseReina on X (formerly Twitter).
