The Catholic Church remains wounded by the enduring harms of clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up. This has been evident throughout the synodal process. For instance, the Synod on Synodality’s recently published Synthesis Report acknowledges those “who have suffered abuse and hurt in the Church,” as well as the challenges of healing, admitting that “the long journey towards reconciliation and justice, including addressing the structural conditions that abetted such abuse, remains before us, and requires concrete gestures of penitence.”[1] This echoes earlier findings in the United States (U.S.) where synodal listening sessions revealed that “[c]hief among the enduring wounds that afflict the People of God in the United States is the still-unfolding effects of the sexual abuse crisis.”[2] Thus, the global Church, and the U.S. Church in particular, must seriously attend to the harms of clergy abuse and its cover-up, and work toward repair and healing. I believe reconciliation and justice will only be possible when the Church embarks on a bold and visible healing process centered on truth-telling, accountability, and transparency.
I envision that Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) directed at clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up have the potential to foster the kind of transformative healing and justice that this moment requires.[3] Clergy Abuse TRCs would center the voices of survivors and invite members of the Church to stand in solidarity with survivors throughout the process. These TRCs could be implemented at the local level by parishes or dioceses following a thoughtfully designed and trauma-informed general rubric that could be adapted according to local cultural, juridical, and contextual needs. Ideally, TRCs would be supported by centers or networks that could provide assistance and expertise.
Generally, TRCs are tools used to sow peace after political conflict. Truth-telling is at the heart of this approach to restorative justice because reconciliation may only be truly possible if survivors’ stories are heard and their hurt is acknowledged publicly.[4] Historically, TRCs have been convened to address political crimes and injustices that occurred over a specified time, and while their charters vary, they often involve public hearings and they usually submit a written report synthesizing their findings.[5] South Africa’s TRC is arguably the most well-known, commissioned in 1995 and led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to address the human rights violations of apartheid.[6] While South Africa promoted amnesty in exchange for truth-telling, this is not a universal requirement of TRCs.[7]
Clergy Abuse TRCs would be distinct because they would be used in an ecclesial context with theological grounding.[8]This could unleash novel healing potentials of TRCs, as well as harness the Catholic theological tradition in innovative ways to address the problems of abuse. A Clergy Abuse TRC could be an apparatus to encourage healing by creating the conditions of the possibility for reconciliation through a robust process of visible truth-telling and accountability where the People of God can stand in solidarity with survivors. It is incumbent on the Church to create such pathways for healing and reconciliation should people desire it, but reconciliation would not be forced. There will be no universal consensus on how to encourage healing, and there will be a range of opinions on best practices. As such, a Clergy Abuse TRC could be put forward as one of an array of concrete healing options.
Given the potential of a TRC to provide healing for clergy abuse and its cover-up, it seems reasonable to gather evidence about whether this idea is feasible and desirable. The synodal process has ushered in a new era of listening in the Church, setting the stage for openness to what data can teach the Church.[9] And there is already a move in theology to turn to empirical data to better understand this crisis and its harms in the U.S. context.[10] It makes sense, then, to gather information about the People of God’s experiences of healing in order to understand how the Church can move forward.
Following this, I am working with my colleagues Brendan Case (theologian) and Richard Cowden (research psychologist) at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard (HFH) to explore the possibility of a Clergy Abuse Truth and Reconciliation Commission Feasibility Study in the U.S.[11] HFH is a fitting program to engage in this kind of work because as a program focused on human flourishing, our team is experienced in designing and testing interventions for healing, while engaging in such research following trauma-informed research principles. As a program run out of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, we are equipped to produce reliable, data-driven insights. We are in the planning stages of considering this research and, in what follows, I will describe our proposed project.
The Feasibility Study would set out to answer the questions: Is there need and support for the U.S. Catholic Church to implement a Clergy Abuse Truth and Reconciliation Commission(s)? And, is such an endeavor possible?
The first phase of the Feasibility Study would operate over the next two years. We would collect and analyze qualitative interview data from diverse groups of constituents within the U.S. Church about healing in light of themes related to TRCs. The project would be guided by insights from an advisory board of academics and practitioners representing diverse views and perspectives within the Church. The interview questions would be developed in partnership with interdisciplinary experts—including those with expertise in trauma, peacemaking, and legal matters—in order to ensure that we gather information about practical considerations pertinent to any Clergy Abuse TRC, and do so in a sensitive way. The interview questions would elicit how individual and communal healing has been supported and thwarted in the U.S. Church, and whether and how various aspects of a Clergy Abuse TRC—e.g. testimonies, reparations, liturgy and ritual, etc.—could further support healing. We would conduct about 75 interviews with these proposed stakeholder groups in the U.S. Church: survivors of clergy sexual abuse, family of survivors, mental health experts, Church leaders, clergy, seminarians, religious, perpetrators, falsely accused, and lay people. The major output of this phase would be a report that would be publicized widely synthesizing our learnings from the interviews and offering recommendations for next steps to work towards healing.
The next phase of the Feasibility Study would gather more generalizable data through large-scale feedback from Catholics across the U.S. asked to reflect on our initial findings. If the evidence suggests that Clergy Abuse TRCs are a way forward, we would then create guiding principles for Clergy Abuse TRCs and a TRC model/framework informed by insights from the data and in collaboration with stakeholders, interdisciplinary experts, and practitioners. The framework would be trauma-informed, as well as both specific enough to offer guidance and flexible enough to be adapted to the specific contexts of each particular parish or diocese that wanted to implement it.
Importantly, our Feasibility Study research would follow trauma-informed research principles.[12] The interview process would be designed so that interviewees could benefit from the experience of being interviewed and having their healing stories heard and taken seriously. This is a likely benefit because research suggests that sharing one’s story can be a healing process.[13] Promisingly, there has been early feedback that clergy abuse survivors and families of survivors anticipate that participating with our interviews will be an opportunity for healing (especially knowing that the result of their participation will a published report).
It is our hope that this work would complement the growing body of empirical research on ways to address clergy abuse in the U.S. Church, and we hope that the information we would gather could be useful to anyone desiring to develop evidence-informed approaches to healing. We would aim to put forward concrete recommendations that generate momentum for working towards healing and accountability in visible, transparent, and multifaceted ways that meet the needs of the People of God.
It is a fitting time to pursue a Clergy Abuse TRC Feasibility Study in the U.S. because the U.S. Church is poised to listen.The U.S. Church ought to be guided by the priorities of the Synod on Synodality: its emphasis on the importance of being a listening and accompanying Church, and its recognition of both the problem of clerical abuse and its cover-up and the need for healing through reconciliation and justice.[14] The U.S. Church ought to be especially amendable to acknowledging the Feasibility Study because the project’s aims align with the National Eucharistic Revival’s goals to promote formation, healing, conversion, and community. This work and its emphasis on healing would especially support evangelization because a wounded church cannot grow. The Clergy Abuse TRC Feasibility Study would raise up the voices of survivors, their families, and the People of God as they express their healing desires and needs. A listening and accompanying Church ought to be asking questions about healing and opening herself to the responses.[15]
Works Cited
Edward J. Alessi and Sarilee Kahn, “Toward a Trauma-Informed Qualitative Research Approach: Guidelines for Ensuring the Safety and Promoting the Resilience of Research Participants,” Qualitative Research in Psychology 20, no. 1 (January 2, 2023): 121-154, https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2022.2107967.
Priscilla B. Hayner, “Truth Commissions: A Schematic Overview,” International Review of the Red Cross 88, no. 862 (June 2006): 295-310.
—. Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Kate Jackson-Meyer, “A Clergy Abuse Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” in Responding to the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church: Perspectives from Theology and Theological Ethics, edited by Daniel J. Fleming, James F. Keenan, Hans Zollner (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2023), 230-246, https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/72067-a-clergy-abuse-truth-and-reconciliation-commission
Debra Kaminer, “Healing Processes in Trauma Narratives: A Review,” South African Journal of Psychology 36, no. 3 (September 1, 2006): 481-499, https://doi.org/10.1177/008124630603600304
Marcus Mescher, Kandi Stinson, Anne Fuller, and Ashley Theuring, “Measuring and Exploring Moral Injury Caused by Clergy Sexual Abuse,” 2022, https://www.xavier.edu/moral-injury-report/documents/xu-report-on-moral-injury.pdf
“Mission and Vision,” NationalEucharisticRevival.org, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2023, https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/mission-vision-and-timeline
Julie Rubio and Paul Schutz, “Beyond ‘Bad Apples,’: Understanding Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse as a Structural Problem and Cultivating Strategies for Change,” 2022, https://www.scu.edu/media/ignatian-center/bannan/Beyond-Bad-Apples-8-2-FINAL.pdf
Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 2009)
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Diocesan Phase of the 2021-2023 Synod (September 19, 2022), https://www.usccb.org/resources/US%20National%20Synthesis%202021-2023%20Synod.pdf.
XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Synthesis Report: A Synodal Church in Mission (October 28, 2023), https://www.synod.va/en/news/a-synodal-church-in-mission.html.
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[1] XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Synthesis Report: A Synodal Church in Mission (October 28, 2023), 1.e., https://www.synod.va/en/news/a-synodal-church-in-mission.html.
[2] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Diocesan Phase of the 2021-2023 Synod (September 19, 2022), 5,https://www.usccb.org/resources/US%20National%20Synthesis%202021-2023%20Synod.pdf.
[3] Kate Jackson-Meyer, “A Clergy Abuse Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” in Responding to the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church: Perspectives from Theology and Theological Ethics, edited by Daniel J. Fleming, James F. Keenan, Hans Zollner (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2023), 230-246, https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/72067-a-clergy-abuse-truth-and reconciliationcommission. Thank you to the CTEWC volume editors for theopportunity and encouragement to develop the Clergy Abuse TRC idea in the edited volume. The parts of this essay addressing the conceptual aspects of a potential TRC are taken from that chapter, and the Feasibility Study has been an outgrowth of that work. In that chapter, I propose a global TRC, but in this essay I am suggesting that TRCs could be implemented at the local level—thanks to Hans Zollner for suggesting this emendation. I am especially grateful to Jim Keenan and Daniel Fleming and the rest of the members of the CTEWC Responses to the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church-Perspectives from Theological Ethics Virtual Table who gave feedback and encouragement on an early version of the Clergy Abuse TRC idea.
[4] Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (New York: Routledge, 2001).
[5] Hayner, Unspeakable Truths.
[6] Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 2009).
[7] Priscilla B. Hayner, “Truth Commissions: A Schematic Overview,” International Review of the Red Cross 88, no. 862 (June 2006): 296.
[8] For more on some considerations for Clergy Abuse TRCs, see Jackson-Meyer, “A Clergy Abuse Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
[9] XVI General Assembly, Synthesis Report.
[10] For instance, see some great work by Julie Rubio and Paul Schutz, “Beyond ‘Bad Apples,’: Understanding Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse as a Structural Problem and Cultivating Strategies for Change,” 2022, https://www.scu.edu/media/ignatian-center/bannan/Beyond-Bad-Apples-8-2-FINAL.pdf; and Marcus Mescher, Kandi Stinson, Anne Fuller, and Ashley Theuring, “Measuring and Exploring Moral Injury Caused by Clergy Sexual Abuse,” 2022, https://www.xavier.edu/moral-injury-report/documents/xu-report-on-moral-injury.pdf.
[11] Thanks, also, to Daniel Philpott at Notre Dame who has provided feedback and encouragement on early versions of the Feasibility Study.
[12] Edward J. Alessi and Sarilee Kahn, “Toward a Trauma-Informed Qualitative Research Approach: Guidelines for Ensuring the Safety and Promoting the Resilience of Research Participants,” Qualitative Research in Psychology 20, no. 1 (January 2, 2023): 121–154, https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2022.2107967.
[13] Debra Kaminer, “Healing Processes in Trauma Narratives: A Review,” South African Journal of Psychology 36, no. 3 (September 1, 2006): 481-499, https://doi.org/10.1177/008124630603600304.
[14] XVI General Assembly, Synthesis Report.
[15] If you would like to support our efforts or join in our potential study, please reach out to me.