Cor ad Cor Loquitur

Bishops Conference Addresses Risks of Spiritual Abuse in Highly Emotional Settings

A few months ago, Bridget Ryder, a Catholic journalist in Spain, reached out to me to comment on a piece she was working on about a recent document from the Spanish Bishops Conference: Cor ad cor loquitur: Doctrinal note on the role of emotions in the act of faith. (Here’s an AI translation of the document.)

Bridget’s article was published last week. I wanted to share it here (it’s really good) along with some longer comments of my own. Bridget writes:

Spain’s bishops have warned that forms of evangelization that leverage high emotions to proclaim the Gospel risk distorting Catholic spirituality and can lead to forms of abuse.

The bishops highlighted those concerns in a doctrinal note from the Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, published in March. The note warns that an “emotional bombardment” employed as part of some methods of first evangelization can become a form of spiritual abuse or promote an “emotional reductionist” form of Christian spirituality, even when such techniques may be used with the best of intentions. The document also warns that those with an “overly emotional faith” are more susceptible “to psychological manipulation” by evangelizers.

The document puts the instruction within the context of “the various signs of a rebirth of the Christian faith in society,” particularly among young people, and “the creativity of the various initiatives of first proclamation [of the Gospel] that the Holy Spirit has stirred up in many ecclesial movements and associations.”

Despite the energy and conversions those events may generate, multiple dangers exist, according to the Spanish bishops. Evangelization based on strong emotions may lead to an incomplete transmission of the faith, one that does not contribute to spiritual maturity but that teaches converts to rely on emotionally intense experiences to affirm and strengthen their faith. New believers can become “consumers of impactful experiences and insatiable seekers of the gratification of spiritual feeling.”

The bishops compared the phenomenon to the current populist political climate where many politicians try to induce citizens to vote for them through emotional appeals to fear or anger.

“In the spiritual life, too, there is a danger of trying to provoke certain behaviors through emotional bombardment,” the document states.

I’d encourage you to read her whole article here: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/dispatches/2026/06/01/spanish-bishops-emotional-manipulation-evangelization/

I wanted to highlight paragraph 10 of that document (again, this is an AI translation) and offer some longer comments than what there was space for Bridget to publish. From the bishops’ document:

“Many current social and political discourses frequently appeal to emotions (fear, hope, indignation) in order to generate certain behaviors and adherence. Also in the spiritual life there is the danger of seeking to elicit certain behaviors through an ‘emotional bombardment,’ which could be considered a form of ‘spiritual abuse.’ Such abuse can manifest itself in the form of ‘emotional group pressure,’ which forces individuals to feel the same as others in order not to self-marginalize from the experience. And even through the use of false supernatural or mystical experiences (‘false mysticism’), which distort an authentic vision of God, as means to exert dominance over consciences, nullifying the autonomy of persons or to commit other types of abuse, which must be considered of special moral gravity” (10).

Events that are crafted to elicit strong emotions (e. g. rock concerts) are not manipulative in themselves. Neither is using elements (music, lights, etc.) to help others emotionally enter into prayer or praise. The Church’s liturgical traditional is based of the belief that it’s good to engage our whole body, all of our senses, in prayer.

Spiritual abuse manifests itself when an emotional experience is presented as God manifesting his will for an individual person or as an endorsement of a group or movement. This could look like leaders at highly emotional retreats or youth rallies saying/implying that because someone is having an emotional experience:

• “It’s God’s will that you’re here.”

• “It’s God’s will that you discern the priesthood/religious life.”

• “God is blessing/commissioning this group/movement.”

In order to avoid manipulation, it’s important for those in authority to emphasize that God’s will is always mediated, and therefore this mediation must always be discerned in the individual’s conscience. People must be given the space and freedom to bring these emotional experiences into dialogue with the Lord in the innermost sanctuary of their heart, asking God what they mean for their life and what His will is for them.

If those in authority suppress or bypass the essential role of individual conscience, then we move into the realm of spiritual imposition and abuse of conscience. If those in authority neglect to properly foster and encourage personal discernment, then the ground is tilled for intentional and unintentional manipulation.

And it’s important to emphasize that this manipulation can happen even if those with authority have the best of intentions. Intentions don’t define whether or not something is coercive. And teens/children are more at risk for all of these kinds of manipulation.

*AI was used to edit this post