On September 16, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released a new note about interreligious dialogue titled A Journey of Hope: Sixty Years of Interreligious Dialogue and Fraternity in the Light of the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate
So true, Paul: "refusal from others to listen to survivors’ experiences and engage with reality as it really is." Psychiatrist and author Judith Herman, in her groundbreaking book: "Father-Daughter Incest," (1981), accurately outlines the psychology of it for *all* of us, “The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social contract are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.” This is what every survivor (and loved one, allies, advocates, faithful in the pews,) battles against, the taboo to even think of it, much less speak it, and thus we are socialized to deny, suppress and bury it all, even from our own minds.
Thanks for this example of internal inconsistency within the Catholic Church, Paul. There is no moving on without facing the trauma caused by clerics and clericalism.Thanks too for your work in expanding the acknowledgement of "abuse" to include more than sexual abuse. Spiritual abuse, perpetrating it and also counting acceptance of it as holiness, is an element of our culture.
This is why South Africa had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the country and transmission into democracy after the apartheid government. Bad actors need to be held accountable - so sorry you had to endure this treatment.
So true, Paul: "refusal from others to listen to survivors’ experiences and engage with reality as it really is." Psychiatrist and author Judith Herman, in her groundbreaking book: "Father-Daughter Incest," (1981), accurately outlines the psychology of it for *all* of us, “The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social contract are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.” This is what every survivor (and loved one, allies, advocates, faithful in the pews,) battles against, the taboo to even think of it, much less speak it, and thus we are socialized to deny, suppress and bury it all, even from our own minds.
Thank you Mike. That’s a precise and necessary point
Thanks for this example of internal inconsistency within the Catholic Church, Paul. There is no moving on without facing the trauma caused by clerics and clericalism.Thanks too for your work in expanding the acknowledgement of "abuse" to include more than sexual abuse. Spiritual abuse, perpetrating it and also counting acceptance of it as holiness, is an element of our culture.
This is why South Africa had the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help heal the country and transmission into democracy after the apartheid government. Bad actors need to be held accountable - so sorry you had to endure this treatment.