Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/24

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu is a Romanian-born neuroscientist. Her research work is concerned with the neurobiological control of abnormal behaviors and brain functions relevant to human psychopathology. The majority of this work is directed at understanding brain mechanisms that underly substance use and abuse with emphasis on approach and avoidance of drug-paired environments. Another line of research is directed at investigating the neurobiological dysregulation caused by sexual assault-induced PTSD and suicide with hopes to inform therapeutic treatments. For her theological work, she is training with the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where she leverages her expertise in neuroscience to develop a theological anthropology based on the Christian Orthodox tradition. This research is focused on the topic of desire vs. dysregulated desire leading to abuse.  She is an instructor for Stepping Higher Inc., a faith-based organization funded by the County of San Diego Behavior Health Services Department to teach and support clergy, pastors, and behavioral health providers who minister to people suffering from substances use disorders, substance abuse, as well as, other psychological addictions or mental illnesses.  She is actively involved in the state legislative efforts to protect adults from clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse. She is co-founder of Prosopon Healing, a resource site for Orthodox Christian victims/survivors of clergy abuse.  In her free time, she enjoys microscope photography and drawing brain cells to share the beautiful structure and function of the brain with the general public through art exhibits.

Dorothy Small an advocate for SNAP, Survivor Network for those Abused by Priests since 2019, was a child sex abuse victim. She also experienced sexual abuse by a clergyman as an adult. Dorothy courageously addressed the latter through successful litigation publicly disclosing her identity prior to the inception of the #Me Too movement. Victimized but not a victim she shares how she moved beyond surviving to thriving using adversity as a powerful motivator. She fortified herself with knowledge of personability disorders and tactics used by predators to help her spot wolves in sheep’s clothing. This has enabled her to feel safe in a world where safety is not guaranteed, even in institutions where one would expect it such as religious. A retired registered nurse with over forty years of clinical experience, Dorothy lives with her loving fur companions Bradley Cooper and Captain Ron, Boston Terriers. She is a self-published author, cancer survivor, mother, and grandmother. Dorothy is currently working on a book detailing her experiences in moving beyond a life of abuse and into a new life of freedom. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, today, we will be talking about how the Eastern Orthodox Church, broadly, has failed to learn from the mistakes of the Roman Catholic Church. We can all acknowledge a fair point: The Roman Catholic Church is bigger than every religious institution. So, given its size, you will have more stories. You will have more horrendous stories. That will hit the newsstands more prominently when scandals come out, naturally due to size. It is like a more famous person having a scandal versus a less famous person. So, preface with that, however, as these abuse cases related to clergy happen within the Eastern Orthodox Church, too, what is the Eastern Orthodox Church failing to learn from the clergy-related abuse coming out of the Roman Catholic Church?

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu: They are failing to learn that the focus should be on assisting those who have been exploited by the clergy the Church employs; those faithful who were victimized. There is great distress to these individuals. That’s one failure. Second would be the reported cases of clergy abuse; if taken seriously by the church, then there wouldn’t be as many lawsuits. In the State of California, a window opened up where more than 4,000 new legal complaints were filed from abuse that took place decades ago. So, there is a constant loss of money. While the Catholic Church can afford financial restorative justice, the Orthodox Church is not as big and doesn’t have a bottomless well of money. Even with the Catholic Church, parishes are having to sell their buildings or file for bankruptcy to protect their assets. Is it really worth all of this to cover up and protect errant clergy who exploit?  

From the viewpoint of the victims, there’s much damage in the form of trauma. There’s a complete assault on their self-identity. Sometimes, leading to suicide, definitely PTSD, that these people have to live with for many years. From the viewpoint of the church, as you know, they are losing money and more importantly credibility and the respect of educated people. 

There are statistics. For every one Catholic who converts to Catholicism, six are leaving. The Orthodox Church is experiencing an influx of white young men; however, the silent majority of educated women and men are distancing themselves from the Orthodox Church institution. People are responding with their feet by walking out. Maybe Dorothy can add a little more.

Small: Thank you. That is the first thing that comes to mind. What do they need to learn? You can’t hide something forever. Things will come to the surface. No matter how long ago, it was done. It is Judgment Day. Coming forth, learning from the Catholic Church, and saying, “Hey, they are being forced to be transparent. They are being forced to acknowledge, ‘Yes, this is happening. Why don’t we as a church take a position, hold accountability, and say, ‘Yes, this is happening in our churches, too’? We want to be proactive acknowledging the abuse occurs and provide restitution to the victims to the best of the financial ability to do so.’”

One thing I find that victims of clergy abuse want most is number 1, to be heard; number 2, to be believed; and number 3, something to happen to the perpetrator to penalize them instead of no consequences to them. The Orthodox Church continues to maintain a position that it didn’t happen and points the finger at the Catholic Church. They are missing the boat. They are missing an opportunity to do something that the Catholic Church had to do under great duress. It looks like it could happen to them as well. What Hermina is trying to do and what Katherine (Archer) is doing is to bring some awareness.. It happened to us. The facts will put them right there with the Catholic Church. They point the finger saying, “They are the problem.” The problem is everywhere. It is in religious institutions. It is all over the world. How can it not be there? They are losing credibility. Again, things concealed have a way of catching up with us eventually.

Dr. Nedelescu: There is one more thing I wanted to add to your question. This is how exposing clergy sexual abuse started with the Catholic Church. A couple of people were looking into abuse cases, reporting of these cases, and then looking further with rigorous research. The same thing is happening now in the Orthodox Church. We have begun a thorough research program for cases in the public domain. It is just the tip of the iceberg. Church administrations are failing to realize how quickly this can be exposed in our current climate and that the problem is far deeper than people would like to acknowledge. 

There are different dynamics across the Orthodox world. For example, in Georgia, you have the church more entangled with the government. While in the United States, too much is left to the local bishops who are (1) not trauma informed and (2) lack training about the dynamics and causes of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse. When episcopal individuals are not well-trained in how to handle clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and confuse it with addiction or other psychopathologies instead of acknowledging it as abuse and predatory behavior, then the situation usually ends up very bad. 

While the Catholic Church has a central governing body, this is not the case among the Orthodox jurisdictions making up the Orthodox Church. It is more challenging to track clergy abuse and easier to hide things under the carpet with so much division in the Orthodox world. 

Jacobsen: So, when considering the Roman Catholic mistakes, if you could take two big ones, what would they be? How is this replicated in the Eastern Orthodox Church? Starting with Dorothy, we will follow up with Hermina in reaction.

Small: The number one mistake of the Catholic Church was in covering up its abuse protecting the reputation of the church and its clerical authority. They denied it outright. The second mistake is the cover up by concealing the files and transferring the clergy who were reported to other churches often to other countries as the church is global. There was no transparency. No one has any access to their system. They could transfer priests who were reported to be SLI, put them under the radar, and put them in the next place because there is no public registry where someone could do a background check. It is akin to “sweeping the trash to the other side of the street”, so to speak. 

Jacobsen: Not admitting, does this reflect their cardinal sin, pride?

Small: It is admitting that they hate scandal and will do whatever they can to protect the institution from scandal, which they believe, having their dirty laundry aired, is the scandal. They don’t realize that the true scandal is lying; lying is a sin. So, you are lying to protect the church. They are committing another sin to protect the church from knowledge of its abusers, which is a crime against humanity. Crime is a sin. But they don’t want to call it a crime, so they whitewash it, calling it a sin. Covering it up prevents the necessary awareness to not only seek to take corrective measures but to protect the parishioners and the church itself.  Lies told are justifiable to protect the church. They protect themselves and keep the sickness locked inside. The real scandal is the lies told to conceal the systematic abuse.

Indeed, as humans we fall. It is not an acceptable excuse to avoid being accountable. It is almost as if the clerics are a hybrid between man and God. However, they are not absolved of their own humanity. Those are the two biggest ones. They lie about it and try to do everything they can to protect the institution instead of the people, who are the most valuable asset. In serving people they are serving God. It seems as if this point is missed. By lying and covering up deeds that are hurting people the church is serving the devil itself which is the father of lies. The epic battle between good and evil, God and the devil, is playing out inside our church walls.

Jacobsen: Hermina?

Dr. Nedelescu: I agree. The first big mistake is the cover-ups. Clergy abuse is happening in the Orthodox Church across all jurisdictions. The tactics are very similar to how it occurs in the Catholic setting as well as other religious faiths. Both the Catholic and Orthodox churches have very rigid hierarchical structures. Cover-ups and silencing victims are the primary tactic used by the Orthodox Church. In the past, some church administrators had those who were exploited sign a document that stated they will not sue the church. In addition, lay people are unwilling to believe that their beloved priest could be an abuser and sex offender. All of this leads to self-justification and scapegoating which is “sin”. However, abuse and sex crimes are not to be compared with the typical “sins” we think of. Stealing a fruit is a sin too. Abusing another human being from one’s position of clerical authority must be understood as predatory behavior and not just any other “sin”. 

Part of not admitting that the abuse happened and asking for more and more information, which is typically used against those who are exploited, is a typical tactic church administrators use. A variety of silencing tactics used by church administrations were described in an article by Stephen de Weger from Australia (Religions, 13(4), Article number: 309). De Weger broke down how churches conduct these coverups. So, anything from appearing sincere at first to coercion or using the classic way. The classic way would be to say, “Let’s be forgiving. The abuser had a slip. He’s human,” “he sinned”, “he repented”, “he had a moment of weakness”, and so on. Then, there are other tactics, such as making the situation confusing because confusion diverts the attention away from the abuse. Other tactics they use are intimidation, coercion, victim blaming, and then negotiation. Ultimately, church administrations and church attorneys make those who were exploited out to be the enemy all while protecting abusive Shepherds who preyed on their sheep for food. There is great effort to blame the individuals who were exploited. 

The Orthodox claim to be afraid of “scandal” should it be exposed that the beloved clergy is an abuser. Here is the scandalous thing the Orthodox often say: “We must maintain unity.” Let’s not rock the boat about clergy abuse. It is ironic. Orthodoxy is so divided into many jurisdictions. There is the Romanian Orthodox Church, which I was born into; the Russian Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church of America, the Bulgarian, Antiochian, Serbian, etc. The Orthodox Church is so divided. 

Looking at this intellectually, I see a mechanism of self-justification and scapegoating which I mentioned before. So, self-justifying that protecting an offender is the right thing to do because we do not want to “scandalize” and “cause division”. This self-justification is mixed in with scapegoating. The scapegoats are those who were exploited by the clergy. These two behavioral responses (self-justification and scapegoating), can be referred to as “sin”. We know from Scriptures that Christ was the scapegoat as well. People need to self-justify to feel better about their actions in protecting their “beloved priest” who puts up a facade in public while behind the scenes he is involved in abusing and exploiting his targeted congregants. It’s important to note that these offenders appear “very nice” in public. They are not “mean” to their victims or in public, that’s how they best deceive people by playing the role of “sincerity” and “kindness” while pretending to be part of Christ’s ministry. The deception runs deep. 

Small: I just looked up on line who has the most followers, Catholic or Orthodox? ‘Roman Catholicism is the single largest Christian denomination, with over 1 billion followers worldwide. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second-largest Christian denomination, with more than 260,000,000 followers.’ This was March 19th, 2024.  In size the Eastern Orthodox Church is the next largest Christian denomination. One would have to ponder, “Surely, they are not without issues of abuse.” If they are willing to look at the Catholic Church and say, “They are the ones with the problem” then they are feeding the problem rather than learning from the Catholic Church and admitting, ‘Look at how they went down, kicking and screaming.’  By December 2002 the Spotlight Team of the Boston Globespotlight published 600 stories of abuse by 249 priests in Boston alone.  The Orthodox Church should deal with the issue of its abuses proactively instead of under external pressure like the Catholic Church, address the problem that is at hand, and see what can be done to bring restitution to its victims.

Number one is acknowledgement. Also, offer survivors pastoral counseling for those who want that. Some people are so destroyed by abuse in a religious institution that they want nothing to do with the church or even God. However, as far as litigation goes, it appears if, if I am not mistaken, that they want to follow the Catholic Church’s defensive tactic. As of April 2024, thirty-eight US Catholic religious organizations have sought bankruptcy protection in chapter 11. Twenty-four cases have been concluded. This ties up the cases for years, eliminates access to the court system in a trial and prevents discovery of important information on the names of the abusers. 

Dr. Nedelescu: I would add that the Catholic Church is just further down the path regarding acknowledgements and exposing abuse. The Orthodox Church will catch up in time, especially now with the  #me too climate and at a time when traumatization-induced abuse is understood much better. This is a time where sexual abuse by religious leaders is being exposed as an epidemic not only in the United States but internationally. 

Small: If it wasn’t for the survivors, for those victimized, who are willing to stand up, and if it wasn’t for the investigative journalists who are doing what you are doing, Scott, and others like you who are trying to expose the story of abuse of adults in our religious institutions and put it out there, as well as attorneys, survivors, putting the pressure on these institutions, they would have no reason to change. They would have nothing holding them accountable. It is not okay to have abuse in the schools or to have sexual abuse in the family.  I worked in nursing for 40 years. This behavior would not be acceptable. How do clerics get a free pass? It is the largest institution in the world. We seek medical care for physical illness and therapists for emotional needs. We are spiritual beings. Many of us gather in religious institutions looking for spiritual comfort and sustenance. Often issues that are addressed in therapy are discussed with clerics in religious institutions to get that perspective. The priests stand at the pulpit announcing, “This is the field hospital for those looking for spiritual healing.” They call it, “A field hospital for the spiritually ill seeking healing and comfort.” So, we enter into the field hospital often much more vulnerable and naked, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, more than with therapists and even hospitals. In hospitals the recovering and those dying request spiritual representatives. We reveal to a religious leader that which we wouldn’t say to probably anybody else.

Dr. Nedelescu: The Orthodox Church uses the same language. Catholics and Orthodox share the first 1,000 years, we were together before the two religious institutions split for various reasons. There are many similarities, including similarities of the rigid male only hierarchical structure I mentioned above. Women are not involved in hierarchical decision-making processes. In our society, we have women CEOs, prime ministers of countries, scientists, doctors, department heads, etc. The current situation regarding women in the Orthodox Church today is abysmal even compared to previous centuries when the Church had clergywomen.  

Small: That similarity includes the consecrated host which is believed to be the actual Body and Blood of Christ, literally, not symbolically. Not many religious practices have that claim. The clergy through whom the miracle happens at transubstantiation changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is something we can not do. That is powerful. Clergy are there to help us reach heaven and not drag us to the hell of abuse of power and spiritual authority.

Dr. Nedelescu: We have iconography in the Orthodox Church that depicts a king bowing down on his knees before a bishop to show the power the bishop has as the person sitting in the throne of Christ. Even a king or a president is supposed to bow down to a bishop. Priests, through their bishop, reflect Christ on earth. That is where this huge power differential between clerics and any other lay person is similar in Catholicism. 

Clericalism is a serious problem in the Orthodox Church. The faithful contribute to this unhealthy “leadership” where whatever the priest or bishops says must be right. If he denies abusing those who he has exploited, then it must be true because “father knows it best”. This is how indoctrinated some faithful are even in their late adult phases.  

Small: This is about a vast power imbalance. Harvey Weinstein represents movie producers. Then there are politicians. Yes, they represent earthly power. People who are seeking a job would be fearful saying anything. So, that is a reason why they don’t want to say anything. They are exploited and don’t realize it at the time. Often it takes years to realize what happened to you but the effects are there taking a toll. With the religious institution, here we are talking specifically about the Orthodox and Catholic churches and how they are structured; as you said, the icon, even with the Catholic Church and the bishops and archbishops, people bow to them. Some even kiss their hands. There is reverence — that sense of being set apart. They are 100% human. Although God’s representatives on earth they are not God. They are touching Heaven’s robe and are God’s representative. But they are not God. I think it is easy with the power of the vocation to forget that. The Catholic Church states at ordination the priests undergo an ontocological change. 

How do you say “No” to such power? Most of us who have been raised in these institutions have been indoctrinated as children to think they are always right. You do not question them. Protect them at all costs. So, we are trained that whatever is going on, you don’t dare say, “No.” When something starts to go awry, we are being disrespectful when we bring it up to them and question their actions or words. We are being irreverent. An exorcist even said, “Don’t criticize a priest.” Of course, unless it is constructive and done a certain way. Do not dare speak about them behind their backs. They are used to being treated gingerly. 

It is a well-known fact that personality-disordered people such as psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists are highly charming and manipulative deceivers. Con men. They are drawn to these vocations with power and plenty of access to fuel. What is the fuel? Attention, adoration. Supply.

Dr. Nedelescu: Glorification. Clergy who sexually exploit want to be glorified by their target victims as well as by their congregation. The exploitation is not typically aggressive. By contrast, it is a deceptively “sincere”, “kind”, and “gentle” type of violence. It’s fake sincerity, fake love. Otherwise, how would an old unattractive religious leader be able to exploit a teen or a younger woman? Abusive clergy seek this fuel of attention and want to be glorified to squeeze praises out of those they exploit, who because of the traumatization have a reinforced response to avoid further exploitation and thus respond to the perverted clergy with this traumatized  . To make sense of all of this, trauma responses need to be understood well when it comes to clergy-perpetrated abuse whether emotional or sexual abuse. Clergy who exploit use punishment with intermittent reward to get attention from their targeted victims. The punishment traumatizes the person being exploited and the intermittent reward reinforces the victim to respond in a “pleasing way to their abuser”. This is a key pattern of the mechanism of clergy abuse. 

Small: Yes, glorification, even negative attention provides fuel. They can manipulate the entire congregation, look beatific, and select their prey carefully selected and groomed. When something that is a red flag occurs, we end up questioning our perspective.  Then when the abuser treats you a bit differently than others we wonder if it is a misperception on our part. Often, it’s a subtle variation in behavior. You start to ask yourself questions. “Surely, I am reading this wrong. He is doing this around others.” Meanwhile, they are getting into your head. They are highly manipulative. The subtlety is missed as it seems to blend in until you find yourself alone and out of the range of others hearing or seeing the behaviors and words spoken that are “off”. 

Jacobsen: When you are a young adult down to prepubescent in the presence of a father or priest, what is the feeling when interacting with them? How are you taught to feel about them in their presence when addressing them in both religions?

Small: In the Catholic tradition, we are taught that the priest is God’s representative here on earth.  If they are snarky, it is something we are doing. It will always be our fault. We are taught to protect them at all costs because their job is much harder because of what they are dealing with. That the Devil is after them more because they are leading people to God. If they are tempted or acting out, we are told that we are supposed to protect them.

It should be the other way around. If they are shepherds in the pasture of the church then they are supposed to protect the flock, not the flock protecting the shepherd. They have it backwards.  I was raised in the church beginning in early childhood. The priest, you never question them. Protect them. “We need him. He is important. What would we do without him?” It is almost like the father in the family where we are taught that we are to be seen, not heard. Obey because if we don’t, you don’t want the consequences. You are kept in line. It is about power and control. That is how I was raised. Power and control are translated onto the priest as a child; there is a father and God’s representative, the priest also referred to as Father. Fear of hell or causing a priest to stumble lingers in the recess of the mind. 

Dr. Nedelescu: It is identical in the Orthodox world as well. Some feel that ordination gave them this special superpower. People are supposed to believe the council of the clergy completely and uncritically because they are ordained. Clergy are viewed as on a higher step than the rest of the faithful. The faithful themselves created this image of the clergy. Others think of themselves as very special, bestowed with some superpowers at ordination. If you go against a clergyman who appears like a “beloved priest” yet he abuses behind the scenes, that’s viewed by some as an attack on the “soul” of the victim not the perpetrator. It’s ungodly to think in this way. This is where evil is allowed to run when those who were exploited are silenced under the premise that the clergy must be protected at all cause; even if he exhibits predatory behavior. Such a response is wrong because we must be able to rightly divide the word of the truth. We must be able to name and divide who did wrong here much like a surgeon divides the cancerous tissue from the healthy tissue. That excision must be done accurately. The responsibility is on the clergy who is in a position of power and exploited the The Office of the Priesthood to exploit trusting people. 

Orthodox theology does not support clericalism. There is the notion of the universal priesthood that belongs to all faithful. When clergy including bishops are errant and/or exhibit predatory behavior, they need to be exposed and removed because something is wrong with them when they are soliciting trusting people under them for perverted attention and/or sex.  

Jacobsen: Has Patriarch Bartholomew made any statements about any forms of abuse in the church?

Dr. Nedelescu: There is a Patriarchal Endorsement by the Archbishop of Constantinople‐New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of a document called “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church”. In this document, there is a keyword search one can do to search for “sexual abuse” which shows up five times and is focused on child sexual abuse but there is no mention of cases when the abuser is the clergy employed by the Church.  Importantly, mounting evidence demonstrates that the silent majority of those getting sexually abused by clergy are adult women, not children, though clergy child sexual abuse is what typically makes the news. So, all of this needs to be adequately updated with the evidence that is available. When it comes to a Shepherd, all congregants are spiritual children not just those under the age of 18 years old. Other forms of abuse are mentioned in this document including the following sentence: “The Orthodox Church cannot, naturally, approve of violence, either as an end in itself or even as a means for achieving some other end, whether this be in the form of physical violence, sexual abuse, or the abuse of authority.” on pg. 60. Not approving vs. acknowledging and taking action against the clergy abuse crisis in the Orthodox Church are two different things. I will also add that violence is not adequately defined because clergy sexual exploitation happens with “kind” and “gentle” violence so when people see violence, they automatically think bruises and scratches.  

Besides this document, I am not aware of any public acknowledgement or clear mention about clergy sexual abuse in the Orthodox Church by any hierarchy leadership. The Ecumenial Patriarchate is not the only head. There is also the Patriarchate of Antioch, Patriarchate of Alexandria, Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Patriarchate of Moscos, Patriarchate of Serbia, Patriarchate of Romania, Patriarchate of Bulgaria, and then you have the Church of Cyprus where my cousin is a priest, the Church of Greece, the Church of Poland and the Church of Albania. I have yet to see adequate statements about clergy sexual exploitation and abuse of the faithful from any of these primates. 

The Romanian Patriarchate should address the recent news of the high ranking bishop convicted for rape. After the conviction on Friday June 28th 2024, the Husu Diocese stated the following in a press release: “…our institution took official note of this conviction, as well as the particular seriousness, in all aspects, of the immoral acts held against the defendants.” The problem is being mentioned but there is no official acknowledgement from the Patriarchate. Perhaps the Romanian Patriarchate can have the courage to be the first to acknowledge the existence of clergy abuse and sex crimes in the church institution. Then, the rest of the Patriarchate offices and Church heads can follow. 

Small: So, you’re saying the Orthodox Church is admitting there was abuse of children. Is that what I understand?

Dr. Nedelescu: Not exactly. The language is vague and merely mentions something about the topic but there is no official acknowledgement. Let’s be more precise because I am a scientist. The text from the document “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church” on page 21 states the following: “No offense against God is worse than is the sexual abuse of children, and none more intolerable to the conscience of the Church. All members of Christ’s body are charged with the protection of the young against such violation, and there is no situation in which a member of the Church, on learning of any case of the sexual abuse of a child, may fail immediately to report it to the civil authorities and to the local bishop. Moreover, every faithful Christian is no less bound to expose those who would conceal such crimes from public knowledge or shield them from legal punishment”. Does this seem like an admission or acknowledgement that there exists abuse of children in the Orthodox Church? Most readers will answer in the negative. What we do know, is that there are court cases and media cases reporting child sex abuse and our research demonstrates that the great majority of victims are women not children in the Orthodox Church – a pattern also found in other Christian denominations. So, the data is reproducible in the Orthodox Church as well. 

Small: Sexual abuse of adults has not caught up with the awareness of sexual abuse of minors in the church. I would have to concur with Hermina in her statement that much of the attention, what little attention was brought in your church, is about child sexual abuse. I know the Catholic Church states that it mostly happened in the 70s and the 80s and blame it on the culture of the priests that came in through the 60s and the Sexual Revolution. Many who are homosexual were allowed into the seminary. However, homosexuality does not cause pedophilia, nor does it cause them to go after adult women. They might prey on adult men.  Adult women that are being abused as well as adult males. As hard as it is for adult women to come forward, it is much harder for men to speak out. In 2017 about a month prior to filing a lawsuit I was self advocating through the victim advocate at my church and had been for almost ten months. I presented to the bishop a paper I wrote about the silent victims of clergy abuse being adult women. I wrote a paper about the silent victims of clergy abuse being adult women and read it to the bishop and advocate. When I debriefed with the victim advocate following the, she said, “Dorothy, it is not just adult women. It impacts adult men, too. Mark my words, the next wave to hit the church will be the news of adults who have been abused because they will most likely overshadow the number of children that were abused.”

In late 2021 the Vatican came out with a statement saying that adults can also be abused and they are criminalizing clergy abuse of “vulnerable adults.” As of 2024, they are still grappling with what constitutes adult vulnerability. They are splitting hairs. You are a vulnerable adult if you need caregiving and cannot make reasonable decisions on your own at any given time.” They painted it pretty grim. They are loosening it a bit. If, even for just a period, say you lose your husband or your health, or any other situation that causes temporary vulnerability then you’re rendered vulnerable for that period.  I have written 15 or 16 letters to the institute in Rome overseeing the abuse issue in the church. I said, “Basically, you have to look at everyone in the congregation as being held equally vulnerable to being targeted by abusers simply because of the power differential and you cannot know by looking at them who is vulnerable and who is not. Everyone is vulnerable by the sheer nature of absolute trust that goes with the position. We cannot be splitting hairs. Look at the behavior of the clerics; there is no way they should be sexualizing a relationship with any parishioner. All are vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation in the church.”

Jacobsen: What about — let’s call them — congregational flak? I take this from an anti-air weapon called a flak cannon. The idea of individuals who take it upon themselves to protect the church is highly explicit. They do so by aggressively confronting individuals who are coming out with claims of abuse to them or individuals who are supporting those other people. I know, as a journalist and other journalists, who protect those people who have been abused and tell their stories and keep some stuff private, as well as those who have come out. You do get a glancing blow of some of that stuff in your inbox in person. So, it will be worse for the individuals who have come out as the identified abused. How do regular congregational members approach this context of trying to protect the church’s reputation with flak?

Small:  They blame those who are victimized. There are collateral victims.  The other parishioners are victimized because they are there for their spiritual needs and in order to keep going it is difficult to see the clergy member as being the perpetrator. They need to believe that the priest, the father, is okay. Have they been duped? Conned too? We cannot hold two opposing thoughts at the same time. How can he be bad and okay at the same time? So, they must find a way to separate that to continue to justify going. They are getting rid of their cognitive dissonance by displacing their anger at feeling betrayed at the victims who come forward.  So, they will automatically transfer that over to an adult who gets it much worse. A woman in my former church when the news came out of a 13-year-old who was abused by a priest who went to trial and ended up with a prison sentence shockingly said,  “Teenagers these days! They are so seductive and promiscuous!” The accused priest’s groupies gathered in support of him outside the courtroom. What message does this give for the devastated victim and their parents? 

He was like a rockstar. It is the mindset. The priest is always right. When he is not right, it is because somebody tempted him. Somebody lured him. However, they are in the position of greatest power.  Grooming is expertly done by a predator meant to impact emotions. They get into your head. Then the period of intermittent reinforcement ensues forming a trauma bond that is addictive as any addictive substance.  Have you ever been conned? It is easier when there is a deep unmet need. Anybody can be conned by a good con artist. The church is the last place we expect to be injured by this manipulative behavior.

Jacobsen: James Randi has a famous phrase. ‘Everyone can be fooled.’

Small: Remember vulnerability. Yes, as I mentioned previously anybody can be fooled.  Vulnerability makes us more susceptible. Not all who are sexually exploited by clergy are vulnerable because of unresolved early traumas.  Absolute trust in itself renders one vulnerable. Trust is implied from the position they hold. The trust is not earned. In my situation I suffered from serious early childhood traumas which rendered me much more susceptible to being groomed and exploited throughout my adult life. Anyone can be seduced and fall prey to the manipulations of a con artist. Predatory clerics in the grooming phase of their prey often develop a relationship and a personal connection. We afford them more leeway. We might see red flag signs but excuse and dismiss them. Then one day they make their move. We think what just happened here? The parishioners will side with the clerics and distance themselves from the one coming forward to protect them but also their own relationship with them as clergy and the church. 

Jacobsen: Hermina [Ed. Absent briefly], I was calling this class of persons in the laity or the congregation the flak, after flak cannons from back in the day, the anti-aircraft. The idea is that when someone comes forward or reports on it, the person who reports on it will get emails. The people who are coming out stating, “I have been abused.” Regular congregation members will take it as a moral imperative or an emotional need for themselves to go forward and confront these people, even in person and quite aggressively question them or do socially to prevent any potential contamination of others’ minds that happened in that particular congregation. Dorothy was describing within the Catholic context. What is the Orthodox context? Is it much the same in the Orthodox context?

Dr. Nedelescu: Yes, absolutely, it follows the same patterns. So, I do not know if Dorothy already mentioned this. Once an abusing clergy is identified, they do not exist in a vacuum. It is happening in a toxic community, a toxic parish where they are more focused on their “ministries”. However, these toxic places are missing the mark not realizing that the work of the church is not the call to ministry, but rather being more Christ-like. Toxic parish systems think that membership growth and financial gain in a ministry are proof of being Christ-like. These toxic organisms then make decisions that silence unwelcome truths about abuse and fraud. They deceive themselves by telling themselves that cover-up is Christ-like.  

So, abuse continues aided by these enablers. There is this ideology that the community is a “nice community” and that there is nothing wrong with the parish. These people find refuge and safety in their community from the outside world so it’s very challenging for them to understand and accept that their beloved priest, their Shepherd, is an abuser and that abuse is happening in their “house” under their “roof”. It is, therefore, easier to deny it. 

They are more concerned with worshiping this ideology of ministry and safety that they formed than facing the truth and realizing someone they are employing is exhibiting predatory behavior and has caused great harm to people under the same roof. There are also usually more than one congregant being exploited and more than one abuser and armies of enablers. In a congregation of 400, it has been reported that there are about seven victims. This is research coming out of Baylor University.

Jacobsen: So, let’s take the perspective of an individual who has invested their life in the church. I do not mean someone who has been formally theologically educated at an elite level. This is not a critique of the intellectual prowess of theologians. As even H.L. Mencken mentioned, theologians are astute in abstraction and logical argumentation. That is not the point here. The idea is to consider the social and ethical consequences of the behavior of people who have been victimized, both men and women, mostly women. When it comes to institutions like this, individuals who have invested their lives in that community and theology, whether Catholic or Orthodox, what can one take from an individual who sees critique of abuse by clergy of laity as an attack on the church as a whole? How could that potentially be seen as a valid critique? Conversely, how could it be seen as an overgeneralization regarding the concerns brought forward with these stories?

Dr. Nedelescu: What a good question. Small, would you like to take a stab at it first?

Small: Sure. I can answer.  When I reported my abuse, a church member in her late 70s said, “The church has enough scandal. Why are you doing this?” I am also with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and they view advocates along with the victims who report as the villains. I was first a victim/survivor, and then I became an advocate. They view it as if you bring attention to the church; you are creating the scandal. Therefore, the one reporting is against the clergy and the church. What they do not understand is that to heal something, it must first be exposed. Sunlight sanitizes abuse. By coming forward and reporting it, I was revealing inside information that this priest was not okay. He was presenting himself as one way publicly. It was a mask. I experienced the darkness beneath it.  

I felt a duty to report it. If I did not, I would have been complicit by covering it up. That has been the whole root of the situation. That goes against what God teaches. God is light, truth, and justice. If you are trying to keep the light, which is the truth, out of the church, you are locking in the crime and the sin.  Using medical terminology, if a patient has an abscess, it cannot heal until it is excised, opened and drained. One can take an analgesic to ease the pain, but unless you get to the root of the abscess, at the source of the infection, it cannot heal. So, it is with the issue of abuse in the church. Covering the issue of abuse with the bandage of silence makes it spread instead of exposing it and bringing appropriate remedy such as restitution for those abused and penal action for the clerics. 

I reported because I did not want the same thing that happened to me to happen to another person. I know what I went through.  I cared about others who were in danger through exposure to the priest. I also reported it because I cared about the priest. He obviously was not okay, and I knew that. In caring about the priest, I also cared about the church itself and the good priests who uphold their vows. Does the church, which represents Christ, deserve to have wolves in sheep’s clothing masking as shepherds? Reporting and holding them accountable is not against the church. It is not against clerics. It is against abuse and its coverup. 

When we speak truth and seek healing, we are not only looking for healing for those who were hurt but also for the one who hurt, who is also in need of healing to prevent further injury. It is not anti-church or anti-clergy. It does have a huge effect. It affected my ability to keep going because it triggered night terrors and severe anxiety. I had to remove myself. I had a lifelong relationship with the church. It provided a deep source of comfort and spiritual nurturance and expression of my relationship with God. Eventually, I realized I needed to evaluate myself, examine my life, do deep healing that increased my vulnerability to abusers, and see where the church fits in the grand scheme of things on “the other side”. I did not know if I would make it to the light at the end of the tunnel. It launched me into the longest dark night of the soul from which at times I thought this must be what hell is like. 

My childhood was opened for investigation because the trauma that happened in the church tapped into it. I could not heal from the church without delving deeply into my earliest childhood. For those who have not been directly injured by abuse in the church, they try not to think about it. They know it is there, but ignorance is bliss as long as it does not touch them or someone they know personally. It happens to somebody else. They can sit in the pews, keep putting the money in the collection basket, keep going to church on religious holidays and every week, and have their spiritual needs met while ignoring the fact that this is happening to their brothers and sisters in the church family globally.

Let us compare this to abuse in the family. For example, let’s look at a family of ten children, a father, and a mother. The father is sexually abusing one child, but he is treating all the other ones well and earning the money to support everyone. Then the abused child says something about it, and what happens? The other ones do not have that perspective. Suddenly, you just said something bad about the father, and they cannot believe it because it threatens their relationship with the father they need so much. So, who are they going to get angry with? They will get angry with the child who reported it because the other nine need the father. They do not need that other child.

This translates to the church. The one reporting the abuse is expendable, but they need the priest. They need him because that is their relationship with God. The victim who reports it just got in the way. You just brought attention to the fact that the father did something too uncomfortable for them to reconcile. The situation is comparable to the family system. 

Dr. Nedelescu: The church is more than just the priest, administration, or the bishop. Small is conveying this concept of what church truly is when she uses the theological term “Body of Christ,” which means the people, the faithful, all of them. The church is not just an institutional organization. 

To those with a problem with advocates who expose the truth, it comes down to whether they understand what the Church is. There was this great theologian in the past named Maximus the Confessor in the 7th century, and he spoke the truth. Here is what the Church did to him: they cut off his tongue and his hands. That is what the Church did to him. That is what continues to happen today, whereby those who speak truth are cut off from the community. They are treated as the enemy. It is part of our disturbed humanity to shut down people who are speaking the truth. But, when we do this, we are cutting off the wrong branch of the Body of Christ. At the same time, when this happens and people still manage to speak the truth, it has even more power. So, we should not worry and have some trust. To trust means to have faith. “Fundamental trust is ultimately a faith in meaning, to which we can decide. Among other things, it also means the awareness of our uniqueness and irreplaceability as well as our value for the world”, says Viktor Emil Frankl, who started the Logotherapy School of thought.  

That is all I would add because Dorothy covered it so well. Her point about the need to speak up because the clergy is not well is also critical. A clergy who has abused is not fit for ministry, he needs to be removed from ministry and put into an abusers’ program. In the early Christian days, people who “sinned” (NB: Clergy sexual abuse is not a sin like any other sin such as stealing. Clergy sexual abuse is predatory behavior and using “sin” to describe predatory behavior greatly undermines the gravity of the matter) were removed from the community and then very slowly brought back into the community if they demonstrated understanding of what they has done.  

Research shows that clergy who sexually exploit their prey usually do not repent. It’s very rare for abusing clergy to admit to this type of wrongdoing. This involves an acknowledgement that he abused and an apology to those he exploited and lied to. Church administrations who leave them in their “sickness”, means they do not care about these offenders, the victims or the future of the Church as a Body of Christ. We advocates care about the offenders as much as we care about the people they exploit and the entire community. It’s sad to see people who call themselves “Christians” protect offenders all while vilifying the victims and cutting them out of their communities. That’s when you know that the parish is not serving God. And all of this appears under the guise of the “friendly community”. It’s brainwashing that is a pattern across all parishes with abusive clergy. 

Jacobsen: What about individuals who take critique of priests from women and men coming forward as simply hating God? You are angry at God. This is something very common for individuals coming from certain thought communities. They get this online, and they get it in person. “You are angry at God. Therefore, we can dismiss or pigeonhole you and not pay attention to any of the arguments you might be making or testimonies you bring forward.” In the case of clergy-related abuse, could this be a similar prospect for individuals who take those coming forward as “you are angry at God”?

Dr. Nedelescu: Yes, angry or an “apostate”, renouncing one’s religion. That could be considered. They are greatly misguided because it is the opposite. Clergy who abuse create a situation where the concept of God is manipulated in order to exploit their congregants. Adults who learn the dynamics of clergy abuse know that it was not “God” who abused but the clergyman himself is the one who abused. In fact, the abusive clergyman can be decoupled from the Office of the Holy Priesthood, which has high standards, at least according to St. John Chrysostom.  

Small: I think that would apply more to those who were abused as children. The parents and the children are angry, asking why God let this happen. In my association with those who have been traumatized in the church, whether as children or adults, I have had people say that they could have nothing more to do with God because God did it. God used the priest to abuse me. And if God did not do it, why did He not stop it? It automatically goes to God; it gets translated there. So, if we report the priest, it somehow touches upon our relationship with God. We must be angry at God for reporting His emissary? But there is an issue with theology in that regard. Let us take it back to the family. If you are reporting a father who is sexually abusing his child, are you reporting a good father? So, if you are reporting the priest, you are not reporting God because what is God? God is light, truth, and love. There is no abuse in God. The predatory priest is not a good priest. It gets mixed up. It creates confusion. 

The predatory priest is acting outside of his relationship with God. It is not anger against God when an abused reports the priest. It is serving as a witness for God, saying this is abuse against God, and the cleric is manipulating his relationship and his position, representing God to abuse. The cleric is abusing the name of God and the position of God to do something totally against the religion. It does not even make sense. That level of ignorance and denial is almost a child’s perspective. When someone says, “Why did God not stop it?” Why does God not stop anything? Most abuse takes place in the family, not in the institution or the religious church. So, what happens there? Where is God? Everyone wants to blame God. It is okay to be mad at God. It is okay to feel anger.

God can handle it. It is about free choice when it is all said and done. We are given free choice. Somebody else’s free choice hurts us. Our own free choice hurts us and others. Bad things happen. But where is God in the middle of it all? He is in the helpers. There are people to help with healing. There are those of us who are advocates, support groups, therapists, family, friends etc. However, often it is too difficult to share with them and often they feel frightened and powerless about how to handle the situation.  If God interfered with free choice, would it be free? No. However, not everyone thinks about free choice as a source of pain. The parishioners need to place the blame, and even the attorneys representing the church on the victims who serve as a scapegoat. 

Dr. Nedelescu: That is what was going through my mind, the mechanism of scapegoating, how there always has to be a scapegoat, whether it is the victims or the Catholic Church or celibacy. Many Orthodox Christians think that abuse happens in the Catholic Church because their priests are celibate. However, our bishops are supposed to be celibate too. Now, we know from the research work of Richard Sipe that only ~ 50% of Catholic priests were actually celibate, and more recent research work shows that that percentage of Catholic priests who are celibate is even lower. The same pattern follows in the Orthodox church where some celibate bishops and monks are having sex as well as some married priests are having sex outside of their marriage. It is the same with monks. Have you ever read the cenobitic monk literature? 

The human race is a sexual species not an asexual one. Healthy sexual interactions need to be discussed in both the Catholic and Orthodox settings urgently so that the faithful know how to better identify perverted sexual situations such as clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and exploitation. 

People can have scapegoats for everything to self-justify and continue being in the rut without any spiritual formation or growth. When people respond by scapegoating those who were exploited by the clergy and justify the abuse by blaming the victims to protect their “system”, they are people who live in a disgraceful rut. We can respond to clergy-perpetrated abuse with grace or we can respond in disgraceful ways and pretend everything is ok while lives are being destroyed to the point of suicides in some cases.  

Small: The scapegoat receives all the blame that others cannot see in themselves. Yes, the victims are scapegoated. God is even scapegoated because the true perpetrators do not have accountability. Actually, Christ was the scapegoat for all of our sins. That is part of the personality disorder and the mindset of the abusers. They avoid accountability, gaslight, cause confusion, self-doubt, and blame others. It is everyone else’s fault, not theirs. The root of the problem is that the issue of abuse of adults must be addressed. There is a need for public education. What can people do to be safer in the churches? The Vatican or Orthodox officials can inform the parishioners how predators groomer. Distribute flyers at the beginning of all churches informing on the tactics used by those with predatory behaviors. Predators are everywhere in the world. Yes, they are in our religious institutions. Open up the dialogue so it makes it easier to acknowledge that in this world there are no absolutely safe places. It is a fantasy. 

Acknowledgement of reality reduces gullibility so that we don’t automatically assume just because it is a house of worship that it is a 100% safe place. For example, if one walked into a bar, one would have some protection.  Entering into a church we think is automatically safe. Our guard is down. This is not a safe presumption to make.  If one has a concern or notices something isn’t right, encourage reporting; here is a number. Call us. I know the church needs to protect priests from false allegations. One of the tactics used when I went through the deposition was being gaslit.  The defense attorney asked me, “Why did you invite him to your house that day?” I replied, “Well, because he is a priest, I thought it was safe, and he asked me on several occasions to ride bikes. We were going to do something public. I did not expect to be sexually assaulted.”  So, they are looking for fault in you. They are looking for what you did. If you are an adult, the automatic mindset is that you are reporting because of being a jilted lover. The priest establishes a bond of friendship and increases grooming efforts through intermittent episodes of appropriate behavior with inappropriate. If questioned he often denies it. It creates confusion and self doubt. 

It is not love. It is abuse. Often, they tell you they love you and bring God into it.  If someone is injured enough to the point where they will come forward and risk themselves to do that, it is not part of love. It was part of an abusive situation. There is a great deal of knowledge deficit. Even the victims often are unaware of what is happening at the time. Predators target emotions. 

Jacobsen: There are general trends for victims who come forward. Most cases of sexual assault that come forward are true. The default should be that it is true or very likely to be true. If you look at the data from the FBI and the Home Office of the UK, two separate institutions not known for being silly, they gathered up to four-figure numbers of cases of rape, the most extreme form of sexual assault. Those cases found that some single-digit percentages were unfounded. My interpretation journalistically is that either the person lied or there was insufficient data to make it found. The actual rate of lies is lower, given those other options in the present data. You either have established or founded or unfounded but insufficient evidence. When someone comes forward in general, it is likely to be true or just true. Given these general trends of denialism, Hermina is a neuroscientist, and she knows all about the denialism of scientific theories that are well-established hypotheses in the general public.

Dr. Nedelescu: It is a way to protect oneself and the rut they exist in. That is why they deny the wrongdoing. People with alcohol use disorders or substance use disorders who abuse alcohol and drugs deny they have a problem as well often until the body breaks down and they die. When they can’t deny it anymore because the truth is exposed, they find strawman excuses to blame their victims. 

Jacobsen: An individual not only denies but also victim blames. I am getting more general terms of what Dorothy pointed out regarding why. The why questions that you or others keep getting regarding that deposition. What would be an appropriate response to individuals who do not see it this way but are inclined to blame the victim? They might do it indirectly by asking so many why questions or directly. For individuals who do not see it this way but are victims blaming, either indirectly, as in Small’s case, with all the why questions during her deposition, or directly, how do you potentially approach those individuals to reframe their mindset about these things?

Dr. Nedelescu: The question is how does one approach individuals who are using DARVO behavior? It stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It is well-studied, and it was Jennifer Freyd who coined it. How to deal with such people is to resist them maximally. Maximally resist it and hold on to the truth because there is something very powerful in holding on to the truth. That is how people should handle those individuals. People whom the church or a clergy victimized should maximally resist DARVO behavior / victim blaming. I was once told that an old priest became attracted to another younger congregant and began an “affair” with her because the priest’s wife was “bland”. This church community kicked the priest out of their parish which is the right thing to do and signals that such a community is healthy and respectful of women. I say “affair” in quotes to be clear clergy who solicit their congregants for sex is not an “affair” but rather it’s abuse because an “affair” requires two consenting adults of equal power and this can never be the case when involving a clergy who represents Christ on earth – that’s power.  

Orthodox priests can marry so some blame their wives for the priest’s abusive behavior. Other abusers blame those who were exploited. It’s basically everyone’s fault except the clergy who abused. Abusers take no responsibility and because there is no accountability by their employer then they continue offending unabated.  

Small: I concur with what Hermina said. Unfortunately, trying to get everybody on board is probably unrealistic. Just knowing that supporting people who come forward by saying they are believed, heard, and not to be blamed or shamed is important. Expecting someone who cannot grasp that to grasp it is unrealistic. All we can do is put the information out there. Sexual assault and domestic violence have advertisements warning people about certain situations. We have no safeguards for the church. To have people automatically think the church could be a hiding place for an offender will take time and public exposure. We know that in a bar not to leave a drink unattended. It is easy to have someone tamper with it. When out at night it is safest to not walk alone. We know to avoid certain unsafe public areas. There are safeguards for being safe in other venues but no guidelines for being safe in a church.

Providing safety information about how to protect from predators and would help educate parishioners on red flag behaviors predators use to groom. The church has flyers advertising functions and pilgrimages. Why not have a place where safety information is readily accessible so people can pick it up? If it is found in the church, it will be more credible than if someone from outside the church tries to say there is a problem in the church. If church representatives, leaders, the pastors, bishops, and the Vatican allow that information to be brought in print so people can grab it on their way out, it would be more accepted. God stands for justice and protection. Yes, it is possible to be hurt in the church. Here is what it is. Reach the public. If it is accepted in the church, it will be more accepted by those who attend it. The information flows out into the general community as well. It is a public safety service.

I was banned from all ministry in my church community because I reported the priest. Had I not reported him, I could have continued in ministry. When I was ready to return, I did not know I was banned. I said all I needed to restore myself was to let me come back and sing. He was not ready. He did not want me there. He said, “Sitting in the pew for some of you is a ministry.”  If he had let me come back, it would have shown the congregation that he supported me which would have encouraged them to do the same. The pastor sets the mindset and standard for the rest of the congregation.

Take it back to the family. What your mother and father say goes. They have the right to bring in the information they want you to know or not know. If mom and dad accept this information, the children are more apt to accept it. Take it to the church level. If the officials bring that information into the church, it will be easier for people to accept that it happens because the officials say it does. A family discussing problems has a better success rate of preventing problems. When you have a code of silence, that is trouble. Bring awareness, but have it authorized and accepted by church officials. Right now, I do not see that happening. They do not want it in there. It is, “Let’s keep it out of here”. It is considered taboo if church officials do not want to discuss it. Like a family with a child showing symptoms of substance abuse, let’s not talk about it because it is too uncomfortable for the rest of the family. 

If a person has been victimized and is brave enough to come forward and report the priest, maybe the priest needs help. He is not okay. He is representing the church, and that will hurt the church. If we do not report him, his predatory behavior goes on. They typically do not just have one victim. They go on to prey on others. I know I did the right thing, but I was punished. If my church pastor excluded me from all ministry which is granted to the rest saying I brought scandal and will not accept me back? Then the rest of the church community will also ostracize. Let the church be willing to open up and talk about it; then, people might see things in another light.

Dr. Nedelescu: Yes, Dorothy, you covered so much. When I said to resist it maximally, I am aware that some who are victimized cannot do that. Advocates are important in helping victims get their voices back and supporting them so they can resist DARVO behavior where they are blamed by the congregation and church administration. It is a big mistake to think clergy sexual abuse can be handled within the church, internally. It cannot be resolved in a fair way internally. An external company of trained individuals needs to come in. 

Also, clergy sexual abuse is a sex crime and should be dealt with by law enforcement, district attorneys, FBI and civil lawsuits. We are talking about a crime! At the very minimum a police report should be made. Depending on the severity of the crime and local city resources local authorities will handle the urgency of such a case appropriately. However, it’s also important to know that the severity of the crime according to the law is not always directly proportional to the severity of the psychological traumatization, vulnerability to PTSD, etc. The damage that clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse does on the victims and collateral victims is truly profound. If people knew this fact, they would take it more seriously instead of diminishing and protecting the abusive clergy. There is research that shows that even clergy emotional abuse without physical touch led victims of clergy-abuse to completely lose their self-concept, and be made to feel worthless. It’s a complete assault on one’s self-identity and humanity – that part of the self that goes beyond the self and connects with God.  

Small: What he was saying was about the mindset, how to get parishioners to understand that the victim is truly a victim and not a villain. We must address the problem with external pressure because they will not deal with it internally. The Catholic Church needed external pressure. How can we get parishioners to understand the victim of abuse? They weren’t angry with God by reporting. Righteous anger is appropriate when having been victimized. Some are angry with God but that is not what is driving the reporting of the abuse. Introducing information from the outside of the church is challenging for most of its members. Combining external pressure with internal education is essential. Church officials must be willing to accept this knowledge and be open to discussion. Doing so can create an environment where everyone is aware of how to best protect oneself when being awakened to red flag behaviors of predators in the church.

Both external pressure and education from the inside can lead to the thought, “We’re willing to accept that this is happening in our churches. And because it is, we will be open and leave it open for discussion. We will have flyers on display in a place inside accessible so you can know what to look for. We’re all in this together. Let’s keep each other healthy, but knowing that sometimes something will happen.” We must not have our eyes and minds closed. If the church officials accept knowledge coming into the church it can help serve and protect all who attend and the church itself. Compare once again to the family system. If a minor in recovery tries to bring home information from a 12-step program and the family is too uncomfortable to discuss the topic the chances of success dwindle. Shame is at the root of the topic of abuse in both situations. Self abuse from addiction and sexual abuse from a member of the clergy are rooted to deep shame.

The internal awareness aided by external pressure works synergistically.  That’s why I say bring the information into the church so the people who might have missed the cues can be aware. However, the initial pressure is going to come from the outside when an adverse situation occurs. 

Dr. Nedelescu: I think everyone, including Scott and Dorothy, function like that. Dorothy is an internal person within the Catholic Church and applies external pressure working with the Legislative process, for example. And I’m functioning in that way as well. We are both insiders but also outsiders to each other’s faith community as we continue our Catholic-Orthodox work together in the society and at the state legislative level. 

There’s an advantage to being an insider and not an outsider because then the people who doubt or have this mindset that it’s the victim’s fault are more likely to listen to an insider that such cases in which clergy misuse their authority and the Office of the Holy Priesthood the responsibility lies on the clergy not the person the clergy manipulated, lied to, coerced, abuse and exploited. The victims are simply driven by trust until they are able to understand the interaction is abuse. 

Small:  Hermina, you’re correct because I did walk away from my faith practice for about four and a half years. Only recently have I felt that I could reconcile and reenter the church by focusing on the Eucharist and reconciling that along with the good, evil also exists. I’m well aware of the problems from personal experience which forced me to educate myself to heal and serve as an advocate for others wounded in the church. I returned as a SNAP advocate which assisted with my healing process and provided a service to others. I’m very open about what happened to me.  I did not return to my former church because I felt it would have placed me in an emotionally unsafe situation.  I finally was able to choose another church. I could not even attend any religious institution let alone another Catholic Church until recently. I had to lose my former church community that served also as a social support system and as a substitute family as well as a place of worship.  After two months of being back, I let the music director know why I left and how I am returning as an advocate through the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. That is my ministry, and I am back singing. I am not ashamed. Recently the pastor even said, “It’s nice that you’re here singing.” I hold my head up because I did not do anything wrong by reporting what happened. Remaining in advocacy also serves as a measure of protection, I believe. It feels empowering.

Hermina you’re correct as it gives it so much more weight as because I was injured, stayed away to heal, and then returned. I’m absolutely not against the church. I’m not against priests. It shows injury because I had to leave. I had to stay away from my former community which created much loss and grief. But now with enough recovery assisted by pastoral care I finally felt ready to return to another Catholic Church. I grieved the enormous losses, and now I am able to accept the new environment. For me this was difficult due to an early childhood catastrophic loss of my entire nuclear family. I was never assisted or permitted to grieve. The wound from the church tore right into that one. It was never processed. 

I am comfortable returning as both an advocate for those abused and as a member of the parish. My pastoral director, who is a pastor of a traditional Latin mass who listened to me for the last four and a half years, heard quite a bit. He also learned much about the impact of clergy abuse on an adult. The focus was on minors who were abused, which is rightful. However, adult abuse and its impact is not as well understood.  I did as much to educate him as he listened to me express my pain. It opened his eyes even more. However, they’re still priests. The good priests are also injured by the bad ones who abuse. The system is known to protect itself from what they believe is behavior that creates scandal in the church. It is in concealing it that the true scandal stems. So, it becomes our responsibility to take care of ourselves, to drop the shame and not care about what other people think about us in the long term, one way or the other. That’s where it comes down to because we can’t make them all understand.

Jacobsen: What about a numbers critique that someone might be bringing forward? The idea is that only a few women and men are coming forward with these claims. What do you mean? What do you mean by putting a quote as if it were them? There are so many abuse cases, right? And these churches, how can you say that when there’s so few of you public?

Dr. Nedelescu: That’s where Dorothy mentioned before that most of the abuse is not reported. People are so ashamed that they don’t report. Victims are often threatened if they speak up. Whatever we see in the public domain in terms of clergy abuse is just a minority of cases which is indicative of a much larger problem. 

The Orthodox Church is in a crisis right now and clergy abuse is an epidemic that needs to be exposed before more lives are harmed including more suicides because the suicidality rate for those abused by clergy is higher than in other situations or other abuse conditions. 

We have to do the type of rigorous research into this that scientists and social scientists are trained to do. Church administrations are not equipped to conduct serious rigorous research as they lack the personnel and training. Organizations such as the Orthodox Theological Society of America or similar organizations with trained scholars are far more equipped.   

Small: I have another take on that one, too. It goes back to my interview with the victim advocate after I met with the bishop. Files are sealed. So it’s not that the adult might not have reported it. It’s kept confidential. When they report it to the diocese, that information remains confidential and goes into the priest’s file. But after the victim’s age of 25, those files are sealed. The only reason why they opened up files up to the age of 25 in my local diocese is that they were acknowledging victims/survivors who were abused as young adults and minors. They declare young adults to be up to the age of 25. And they pick 25 because that’s when the prefrontal cortex is supposedly fully on board, and you reach full maturity. But we all know that that’s in the perfect world. Many do not reach full maturation long after or even well into later years due to the effects on the developing brain from ongoing traumas as children and often the impact on the brain from addiction which is well known to be associated with trauma survivors.

Years ago before filing a lawsuit I met with a priest due to profound spiritual and emotional distress. It was protected by the seal of confession. The priest blurted out, “That’s rape! He raped you!” He turned pale. He admitted he worked in the diocese the first time I reported disturbing behaviors to the pastor who reported it to the diocese. This priest said he was the one who allowed him to return after counseling on parishioner boundaries. The predator is often narcissistic and adept at being highly convincing through skilled deception. It was the first time I heard the word rape used in what happened to me. I didn’t want to use the R-word. Not rape. There was no violence involved. I was experiencing what is known as the fawn effect. Compliance is not consent. It is a trauma survival response. Besides, he was a priest and I tried to see him as the beatific looking priest who celebrated mass. My mind could not hold two concepts of him. Priests don’t rape. 

Jacobsen: It’s a chilling word. It can silence a room.

Small:  I wanted to soften it. I just wanted to soften it. Initially reporting to them at the onset was the hardest thing I went through. The hardest thing was, “Oh my God, I just got Father in trouble. What am I doing?” I could not fully grasp that I had been seriously violated emotionally, spiritually and physically by a priest I tried to see as that while pushing aside the glaring red flags. His grooming tactics targeted my emotions, and I was under his influence much like an addict to an addictive drug. The lower brain overrides the higher rational brain like any addiction due to the same powerful brain chemicals. It was an enormous emotional and spiritual burden for me. I took the bottom rung on that one. It’s not the damage that he caused me. It’s like, what have I done? And for a while, I even thought I was like Judas or Benedict Arnold betraying him. I was treated as such by many who did not understand. Oh my God, I handed over a priest. And because this beatific-looking person celebrated mass. He looked so innocent and holy for all intents and purposes. But I certainly saw the dark passenger underneath the facade. It’s like watching the Netflix series Dexter, right? He was a serial killer who’s keeping his dark impulses in check. He appears to be normal to his friends and place of employment as a crime scene analyzer, if I recall correctly. However, he had what he named his dark impulses “the dark passenger”. I also gaslit myself. I felt confused and self-doubt. Others gaslight you as well. Church officials, though not all, gaslight. It takes time to unravel it all. Many won’t report because they are unaware for years what happened. They think it was an affair or consensual because of being an adult and for many emotions also are involved due to the process of grooming. 

Dr. Nedelescu: I think it’s the church culture too. Because when I think in academic settings of professors sexually harassing and assaulting, and raping their trainees or those in lesser positions of power, which has happened at various institutions, it’s different. It’s very different because we have a different culture in the academic setting than in the church. The shame belongs to the person in power, not to the victim. There is a great responsibility ascribed to the person in power. In the Orthodox church, I see those who are exploited getting blamed. I see congregants siding with the abusive priest who exhibits covert predatory behavior. Most people are not trained to understand that their beloved pastor who pretends to be “kind” in public is an abuser and the shame and responsibility belongs to him. He misused the authority given to him by the Office of the Holy Priesthood. Very few have admitted that the responsibility lays on the clergy in power. The general thought is that the victim seduced the clergy, when the reality is the complete opposite. In what universe does a 12 year old seduce a 40 year old clergyman with graying hair or a woman decades younger seduce a much older unattractive clergy? Even in the case where say a truly mentally ill teen or woman tries to “seduce” such an older clergyman, he has the responsibility to not devour her but rather to call for help. The responsibility lies on the clergy in power. We need to flip this perverted thinking around and be real and truthful. Power comes with responsibility. 

Small: I think many people are afraid to use the R-word because you imagine all rape is a violent act like those depicted in movies. Again, complying or submission does not express content. It is a trauma response to avoid further escalation. The trauma response includes fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It is instinctual.  So perhaps there was no act of violence per se, but you certainly did not give consent by submitting or complying. You didn’t want to create a worse situation in one where if you would have fought might have made it a physically dangerous situation. 

Dr. Nedelescu: Freezing in cases where women are sexually assaulted is well documented as a response to avoid being violently harmed by the offender. It’s a fear response with the hope to remain alive by going into freeze mode.  

It’s important to know that almost all cases of sexual assault and rape by clergy are silently violent cloaked under the gift of “love”, “gentle” violence involving deep deception. Deception means to be manipulated into believing in something that is actually false and untrue. When there is trust as people tend to have in their clergy, this trust – a beautiful human attribute – is taken advantage of by the abusive clergy who uses trust to exploit. Most victims of clergy abuse report that they felt “safe” and trusted the clergy who turned out to be an abuser preying on them.

Small: Yes. So when I look back at mine, I think, “Could it have been rape? I did not fight. I was on autopilot yielding to his power and position as a priest who was supposed to care about me and protect me from harm. I was always vocal saying I don’t want anything inappropriate to happen. I would never agree to that. I would never do that. I was kind but also respected his position assuming he would honor it. I let my guard down just long enough. And so after it happened, I pushed it away for a year until I couldn’t push it away anymore.  I kept triggering. I thought, “What the heck? Why is that happening?” I tried to make it okay, but there was nothing okay. And I went, well, because it wasn’t violent, maybe I could excuse it?  “Did he hold you against your will? Where are the scratches?” The damage was not visible except through my symptoms. One can not see externally psychiatric trauma except through the symptoms associated with complex ptsd or ptsd. It comes out in behaviors. 

Jacobsen: This is the Hollywood portrayal of violence and sexual assault.

Small: A prime example of this issue is the incident involving Stormy Daniels and Trump. As a witness at his recent court trial, she mentioned that she considered it “consensual” because she didn’t say no, and there was no violence involved. However, her description of the events does not align with a “consensual” interaction. Despite her assertion that, as an adult, the absence of violence equates to consent, those familiar with non-consensual acts and sexual abuse recognize her as a typical victim of sexual violation. However, the trial was not about sexual assault. 

Jacobsen: People can find themselves in situations under pretenses where they are harmed or even murdered. The context may seem benign, but the act itself remains violent. This distinction needs to be clear. Your expertise in brain science would be valuable in this discussion. I’m familiar with Professor Elizabeth Loftus’ work on false memories at UC Irvine. This could serve as a more evidence-based or academically sophisticated rebuttal against abuse allegations, suggesting concerns about false memories. Some abuse stories emerge 20 or 30 years later, raising the possibility that these claims might be misconstructed or entirely fabricated memories. Is there a risk that individuals coming forward after such a long period might be recounting false memories?

Dr. Nedelescu: I must say, no, there is no risk of fabricating such elaborate memories of sexual abuse with all the traumatization and vulnerability to PTSD that follows. There is the possibility of forgetting details and people remembering these details later, sometimes much later, when the trauma has subsided, but the idea of fabricated an entire sexual abuse memory is impossible without getting caught by experts. The main reason is that before there is memory, there is learning that needs to happen. These events can be short lived or learned over time such as during the “grooming” phase, when the abuser breaks down the victim’s natural alert barriers. Learning experiences become instantiated into the brain’s physical structure, likely at the synapses, turning into short term memory and then if important/traumatic enough, it becomes longer term memory. 

In 2009, I published work showing what happens during fear learning at the neurobiological levels. Clergy who abuse operate by inducing fear in their subjects they exploit. They do this with small punishments which escalate with time and intermittent reward. It usually works like this. After a phase of attention, the abuser starts with small punishments and intermittent rewards to break down the victim’s natural defenses. Underneath it all, it is fear learning. The victim learns to fear the abuser even if they might not be able to name the emotion of fear.  

At any rate, in this first author paper, my co-authors and I showed that a subunit of the AMPARs (a receptor that allows Ca+2 to enter the neuron) translocates from the dendritic shafts and spine heads to the synapse to support the newly formed memory of a shock-induced fear response. So, a stressful stimulus resulted in the translocation of these receptors to the synapses to support the newly formed fear memory, is what that study conducted. The internal neuronal mechanisms of the brain at the time of learning contributes to memory encoding. There has to be some sort of activation of these neurons to instantiate a memory. This activation happens through the sensory systems (i.e., our five senses) which are activated by environmental stimuli or some deep brain artificial stimulation to activate those neurons that support a certain learning and memory process as in the case of the Science paper by my colleague and mentor Mark Mayford (Science Vol 335: 23, 2012). Memory is flexible in terms of details that it can remember. Human memory is not great, but to say that victims are capable of fabricating an entire abusive event as part of a false memory shows a lack of understanding of how the brain and behavior works. 

In many of the abuse cases where people do not come forward for many years it is not so much because of their “memory” but their inability to process what happened to them. Clergy abuse is extremely painful with serious traumatization that surpasses that of veterans (see the work of David Pooler). Facing the truth is very challenging in these cases. So, the matter has to do with courage more than memory. Once that fear is named, the victim can begin to switch to being a survivor. 

Are you suggesting that some might say that someone could implant a false memory, and the person then comes forward 50 years later?

Jacobsen: Yes, as a form of academic pushback against those coming forward with abuse claims.

Dr. Nedelescu: I think such cases are impossible. I am unaware of any actual instances. While it might be possible to implant minor false memories in children, a traumatic event like sexual abuse is far more complex. For example, suggesting that someone wore a red dress instead of an orange dress at a party in 1980 might be a false memory, but fake trauma and fake sexual abuse are not easily implanted in someone’s memory. How would one even go about doing that? There was a case in the Orthodox Church, I believe in the Antiochian jurisdiction, where a priest abused an adult woman. He claimed that their abusive counselling sessions, where he bit her all over her body and raped her, were meant to help cure her of her childhood abuse repressed memories by her father (which never happened). This is an instance where the abusive priest attempted to “implant” a false memory of childhood abuse to justify his actions in abusing her. This is the closest real-life example I can imagine where someone (a clergy in this case) tried to implant a false memory. That priest had this victim under his clutch for three years. 

Jacobsen: This situation is reminiscent of the satanic abuse ritual panic in the ’90s, where well-meaning but misguided efforts by therapists and other professionals implanted some false memories. These professionals, in the course of their work, made significant errors. This differs from untrained individuals, such as community leaders, misremembering events. This nuance is essential when responding to arguments from individuals who come forward with such claims.

Dr. Nedelescu: Clergy abuse is profound, and we need to move beyond the psychology of memories. This should not be used as a defense in any way. It’s crucial to make that clear. While some individuals might attempt to use this defense to reduce punishment, as seen in other court cases where abusers blame their psychopathology, neuroscientists must address these nuances and ensure our knowledge is not misused against victims.

Small: Statistics indicate that 21% of surveyed patients experienced false memories, and in 12% of these cases, at least one client later recognized their memory as false. Furthermore, 15% of respondents noted that at least one patient filed a civil or criminal complaint based on these false memories. However, how frequently do false allegations of child abuse arise?

Dr. Nedelescu: Parts of our past memories can be remembered in a patchy or “falsified” way. For example, I swear I had a white dress at age three but it turns out it was yellow from photographic evidence. Our memories are not like a computer where you write something down, close it and if you open it 10 years later it remains identical to how you wrote it 10 years prior. We forget things and supplement with our past experiences. Memory is like a lego tower of different pieces that we put together and sometimes small mistakes are made. Being raped by a clergy is not something that can be artificially implanted in the brain.   

Importantly, the trauma that is experienced from clergy sexual abuse leads victims to tell their stories in a very patchy non-chronological way. However, the more time passes from the abuse and the more the story is told, the better the victim is able to make sense of it and put the pieces together in a more cohesive way. 

As I mentioned before, clergy sexual abuse is predatory behavior because a clergy is a position of immense power over his congregants and when they abuse their parishioners this power differential makes the abuse predatory. I am a scientist, I do and read experiments. There is work from Barbano et al., 2024 in Nature Communications that shows that excitatory neurons in the VTA (ventral tegmental area) are activated by the presence of a predator. These are animal studies but what I am trying to show with this example is that the brain’s neurobiology is altered in the presence of a traumatizing predator leading animals and humans to respond as trauma patients respond. And what is that behavioral response? For some it’s a fear response for others it’s a myriad of other trauma responses that remain to be thoroughly studied. 

People carry trauma differently. Individuals are all so different and how clergy sexual abuse and exploitation gets instantiated in the brain and made sense of is vastly different from individual to individual. One thing is certain, though, all victims exploited by clergy experience trauma, some with PTSD vulnerability, self-medicating tendencies and/or suicidality just to name a few. 

Jacobsen: False allegations do occur, but extremely rare.

Small: Yes, they do. However, in cases of child abuse, the Catholic Church, for instance, involves trained clinicians and forensic psychiatrists to make these assessments. These professionals undergo intensive training. False reporting or false memory is less common in adults. Adults may block certain memories, and, as Hermina mentioned, they might focus on one aspect of the trauma, leading to altered perceptions of surrounding details. For example, I couldn’t recall certain things because I was focused on a specific element.

A relevant example is Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against the Supreme Court nominee, reporting he sexually assaulted her in high school. Despite the years that had passed, her testimony was publicly scrutinized. Do you remember Christine Blasey Ford and the nominee? He is now on the Supreme Court.

Jacobsen: Clarence Thomas?

Small: No, not him. That was Anita Hill. This one was more recent. It begins with a “K.” 

Jacobsen: Kavanaugh, yes.

Small: Yes, it was a significant story in American news. Christine Blasey Ford was incredibly credible. She adhered to specific details, but critics argued her account wasn’t real because of gaps in some surrounding elements. They claimed it was false because she didn’t get every detail correct.

Jacobsen: This relates to our earlier discussion about the deposition process and why. “Why? Why?”

Small: Well, it relates more to what Nina discussed about false reports. When questioning involves changing stories or minor memory discrepancies—like whether a dress was orange or red—the core assertion remains: “I was sexually violated.” The peripheral details may be inconsistent, but the central violation claim stands. In my deposition, they fixated on those minor details, asking what I wore, what time, and what I was doing.

Dr. Nedelescu: That approach is absurd and shows a lack of education. This involves a priest in a position of power. Let me quickly add that the experts at Diane Langberg’s Associates, have decades of experience with clergy abuse, provide a clear example: If a woman walks into a priest’s office and disrobes, the priest should raise his hands up in the air, leave the room and call for help. The priest should not devour her. It’s not about what she was wearing; it’s about the priest’s responsibility who is in a position of authority and power. This is an extreme example just to make a point.  

I also see uneducated phrases such as “she had an affair with the priest”. An “affair” takes place between two consenting individuals of equal power. When the power differential is unequal, consent dissolves. An “affair” with a clergy is not possible. It’s called abuse and it can be emotional abuse and/or physical sexual assault with rape as the most severe. We are talking sex crimes, not “affairs”. 

Small: I am aware of Diane Langberg and have watched some of her excellent video presentations on the topic. She is a renowned psychologist specializing in clergy and religious abuse. The greatest responsibility lies with the trained professionals who are in a power imbalance due to professional guidelines. Working as a nurse with over 40 years of clinical experience, we received frequent training on maintaining professional and patient boundaries. All patients, regardless of age, need protection because they are under our care, and we hold more power. This principle should apply to the church as well. Priests, like therapists or doctors, perform a skilled duty and are trained to protect their congregation. If a woman disrobes in front of a priest, it signals that she needs help, not exploitation. They are also trained in maintaining professional boundaries.

Small: The priest should act to protect her, not take advantage. You protect them. And what Hermina said, you have a naked woman standing there; what do you do? Do you devour her, or do you raise your hands and run like hell? If she’s doing that to you, that’s a red flag that she’s not okay. You don’t exploit her. She is not a “temptress”. She’s not well. That’s even more the reason to protect. So that’s not an excuse, but they try it. In my case, it was interesting that they asked, “Why did you have to ask him to go on a bike ride that day?” What does that have to do with sexual assault?  I asked him to go on a bike ride on his day off out in the public community so I thought it was safe. But then he asked to use my restroom, which gave him access to my house just long enough. 

The defense attorney during deposition asked again, “Why did you have to do that? Why could you not ask someone else?” Well, because he was a priest, I thought I was safe. I wanted safety and to enjoy physical activity which he had asked me to do on many occasions. I did not know of anyone who I could ask who could ride long distances.  It was innocent. I assumed I couldn’t be with a safer person. I know I would never do anything to hurt a priest; I would never be a temptress towards one. I was well aware of professional boundaries and I respected his position as a priest. I did not expect him to do what he did. The defense attorney asked me why I didn’t kick him or scream? I asked, “How can I kick a priest? If he were anyone else, I would have had no problem!” 

Jacobsen: He made the vow. 

Small: If a patient propositioned me?  I gave the standard response: “That is not allowed. I thank you for how you feel. I honor and respect that, but I cannot engage in that behavior with you per professional guidelines and workplace rules of conduct.” I was in a position of power over the patient. It was not an equal relationship between two adults.  The priest made a vow; they made these vows to God. There is no higher place. When we get married, we make a vow to our earthly partners, but they make vows to God. They’re supposed to lead us to heaven, not to hell. They’re not supposed to take us to hell with them. They’re not supposed to pull us down with them if they’re struggling and having issues. They should help guide us to heaven. I felt tainted. This priest did this with me, and he represented God. It felt like I cheated on God with him unwillingly.  I assumed the priest’s guilt.  I felt dirty. Cheapened instead of protected and of value. Objectified. I felt like I was the mistress when I wasn’t a willing participant. It wouldn’t have happened if he had upheld his vow and professional boundaries. 

Dr. Nedelescu: One thing that needs to be taught for people in churches is to decouple the errant clergy from the Office of the Holy Priesthood, which reflects God. Does that make sense?

Small: Yes, I understand Orthodox priests can marry, but not bishops. Married priests still serve God in their position in ministry. It’s a double betrayal if they’re married and act outside of that boundary in an affair. But assault is not an affair. It is a crime. They’re answerable to the highest position because they’re still priests, not just married men. 

Dr. Nedelescu: It’s a violation of both the priestly vow and the marital vow. 

Small: Catholic priests used to be able to get married as well. Before the 1100s, during King Constantine’s time, bishops and priests married. But then the sons would get the inheritance, and the church wanted the property, so mandatory celibacy was enforced. With celibacy comes chastity; in the Catholic Church, priests say they are celibate, which means not being married, but they should also be chaste, refraining from any sexual activity. Richard Sipe said at least 50% of them aren’t chaste. They’re engaging in sex outside of marriage when they’re married to God, betraying that relationship. 

Jacobsen: What about the straightforward, basic human motivations to avoid getting in trouble?

Small: Part of the Hippocratic Oath states cause no harm.  The Ten Commandments condemn adultery and murder. It is possible to murder a soul. I know as humans we fail. We’re not talking about a lapse in a sacred vow. The Catholic Church minimizes it by saying it was an “inappropriate relationship” or a “lapse in judgment.” They want to use the sin and we are human and fall short of the mark. There is still accountability for our poor choices. 

Jacobsen: The church then proclaims itself as a “whoopsie” organization. 

Small: But let a doctor sexualize a patient, and he’ll lose his medical license and do some jail time. No one wants a heart surgeon with a “whoopsie” reputation. The church is like the boys’ club; they cover for each other. The issue of exposing the magnitude of adults being abused is complex because, for so long, adults didn’t think it was abuse. After all, we are adults. Again, submission is not consent.

Jacobsen: If someone is depressed and drunk, they’re not in their right mind. 

Small:  It’s not only drunk or depressed people who are exploited and assaulted. Anyone can be vulnerable to a predator who is also a con artist. It is illegal if a doctor or therapist does this. With clergy it’s even worse because it affects your relationship with God. It gets you right in the core of your being where the image of God dwells within us. When a priest abuses you, it’s different from your therapist or doctor. It doesn’t mess with God. Either way, it’s not okay and they should be held fully accountable by law. With the wording on the bill about counseling relationships, I didn’t seek counseling in my situation. It was simply a relationship of accessibility. The priest pursued me outside of counseling simply by being a parishioner who also was in ministry. He had access. During the grooming process, it created an emotional bond. Any conversations beyond small talk with them can constitute counseling because, most times, we’re talking to them outside of an actual office. 

Dr. Nedelescu: I am an instructor for Stepping Higher Inc. a faith-based group of professionals funded by the San Diego County Behavioral Health Services. We try to educate people that if they have problems, they shouldn’t go to their pastor or religious leader of faith for therapy unless they are trained. About 25% of people of faith go to their pastor/clergy to deal with their personal problems, and this person of faith is usually not a licensed therapist. They should not be going to a church leader for therapy and counselling unless that church leader holds a license to provide therapy in their state. But for some people of faith, there’s such a stigma against going to see a psychologist that they go to their priest with their problems. Now, if that priest has predatory behavior, you can imagine what will happen.

A lot of the time, people of faith go to their priest for counselling because with a therapist you meet at their office, but a priest can come to you, to your home. The boundaries are a lot more permeable, which can raise the risk of abuse. When they’re not licensed to provide counselling, many of these so-called therapy sessions are very informal, but they play the counselling role. It’s got to stop. In some states, you need a license if you’re providing counselling. But in California, you can do it under a religious organization without a problem. You don’t need a license to provide so-called pastoral care which is confused with therapy, except it’s not licensed therapy. It’s pop psychology. 

In other cases, the clergy will target a potential victim and lead her to believe that they will work together on some issue that doesn’t even exist or that the clergy identifies as in need of “pastoral care”. What this does is it allows the clergy to have access to their targeted victim to discuss this “problem” under the premise of “working together”. The “problem” is often vague or as in the Antiochian case above, the problem was completely made up. 

Small: Guess what that does? Because they are not licensed you can’t go after their license. There’s a separation of church and state. In my case, I was asked, “Did he give you counseling?” I said, “Well, after I reported him initially and he was on suspension for about a week being counseled on parishioner-clergy boundaries and was returned, we started meeting weekly in the counseling room.” I thought that if he really knew about my traumatic childhood and its consequences in my adult life with more abusive relationships that he would understand and it would protect both of us since they returned him to the church. That surprised me given what I wrote and handed to the pastor to give to the diocese as he said they requested of me when I first reported him. He listened intently but he only was gaining more information to use to further groom me. During those sessions every now and then he would state a highly inappropriate comment. It was shocking. But then as if it did not happen, he resumed his clerical role. I thought I was giving him information to help him understand not to mess with me, but he just took it further. They’ll ask what percentage of what you talked about is secular versus non-secular. Because of the separation of church and state, they’re protected if they give you counseling based on religious topics. That wasn’t happening in my situation.  I didn’t seek him for that. I process everything through my relationship with God even in therapy. It is who I am. However, a priest is better able to understand that if the therapist is not Catholic. 

Perhaps some adults strictly discuss religious matters. Many bring in personal issues to discuss even if in therapy for that perspective. With a priest, you will discuss your non-religious issues, like your relationship with your husband or children. It often involves family related issues. 

Dr. Nedelescu: That’s a great point, Dorothy. Some of these clergy are practicing pop psychotherapy without a license under the guise of “pastoral care” but all of this is to gain information about the person they plan to exploit. It’s grooming. Importantly, they are ordained and they can be defrocked just like when a doctor who abuses their patient(s) loses their medical license. The same standards need to be applied to clergy who abuse congregants. Church administrations, however, do not hold this small but significant minority of abusers accountable. So, we must ensure the state restrains them because they typically have many victims and end up harming entire congregations. There are collateral victims as well. 

Jacobsen: When you use the phrase masquerading as priests, do they have priestly qualifications?

Dr. Nedelescu: Most do. Now, I am not going to get into the quality of education in seminaries. There are, however, some people who put on a robe and pretend that they are clergy. Some become a priest in one week. Most go through seminary, though, but still play a role. They merge their role as priest who provides “pastoral care” with their self-concept. This happens with social workers, therapists, but also with those who minister in the church. For example, David Pooler says that” pastoral” role identity theory helps explain the overextended clergy who may have personal problems and starts to devote all his time “ministering” to others at all times of the day because this rewards him with verbal and financial support, which reinforces his belief that he ought to go out of his way to be helpful, no matter what. Eventually, the chronic stress catches up with him and lust or other outlets become his primary way to cope. Lust is abuse. 

These abusive clergy play a role of sincerity and kindness but in reality they are in church settings because it’s easier to abuse. There is no accountability. The church setting is perfect for abusers with predatory behavior. There are lots of trusting people in the church. I know of an extreme case in which the child was raped by a priest and the parents did not believe the child. They trusted the collar and the priest at all costs.   

Small: Some present themselves as priests and have yet to go to seminary. There are those as well. They just put on the vestments and say they’re priests, like men posing as police officers. It just happened recently where a man wasn’t a priest but posed as one. He was a con man. Look at people who pretend to be doctors. When I say masquerading, I mean they can be fully trained and ordained, but if they are abusing, they are not acting out of their vows and professional guidelines. Therefore, they’re not true priests at all.

Dr. Nedelescu: Going to the seminary is part of their identity. The training is also very short, only a few years. I believe three years with no additional post educational training or ongoing development like in most careers. So, it’s not a major investment or huge undertaking as in cases of doctoral work where we dedicate 5-7 years of our life just for the initial training, then another 5-7 as postdocs, etc. 

Some claim they got the “call” from God to be called to the priestly ministry. I squirm at such a statement. Spiritual formation for a ministry takes time, it’s a process not some “call from the sky” and let’s go to seminary for 6 semesters. 

Anna Salter, a clinical psychologist, interviewed people who exhibited predatory behavior and were eventually convicted. She revealed that it’s not until “predators” have abused many times and had many victims that they get caught and convicted. Predators manage to fool people by playing a role for decades before they get caught. Once caught, as revealed by Anna Salter, they look at the situation as a temporary “rough time” that will pass as long as they stay calm. Meanwhile, the traumatization of the victim(s) is profound. There is a series of interviews by Anna Salter with abusers with predatory behaviors that is very useful to hear how they view the situation and how they respond to continue to fool people.  

Small: Even one lapse in a vow is significant, but predators usually have more than one victim. It’s like a serial killer. It is very uncommon to perpetrate once and not do it again. Each time, it’s like an addiction that keeps escalating. 

Jacobsen: They get away with it, so it’s almost like a drug. 

Small: Dennis Rader, the BTK serial killer, was just the guy next door, active in the church with a family. Predators have social covers. The pedophile who drives an ice cream truck, the clown at the circus—these vocations attract narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic predators. I am of course not saying all are deviants! They seek positions of power and authority where they have access to a supply of vulnerable people. When you go to church, you’re there to open yourself to God, examining your conscience is part of it. You’re more open, dropping the masks of our other obligations that often define us. 

Jacobsen: These aren’t bad things. These are good things.

Small: Unfortunately, bad people hide in good places. Ice cream is good. It’s tasty. It is a place to gain the trust of children providing them with something that is a favorite treat. Bad guys are going to hide by fitting into society. Police can have the same issue. There are good cops and bad ones who hide behind the uniform and badge. Now they are being held accountable publicly for what once was not the case.  For the longest time, police were getting away with the same thing. Try being a police officer’s girlfriend or wife at a period when domestic violence was even harder to report than it is because the victim doesn’t want to get the partner in trouble and because there is deep emotional bond. If you wanted to report them to the other men in blue often, they would cover up for them. Try being believed; try being a domestic violence partner to a cop. They’ll cover each other because cops know how cops think. They’re being held more accountable now. If someone is arrested and something happened where the officer took sexual advantage? Who would feel safe enough to say no? Who would take your word over theirs? Often it is like that with clergy. The assault takes place outside of the public eye. 

Jacobsen: So, who’s going to believe it’s a cop?

Small: That’s right.  Because in a court of law, the cop is known as a credible witness just for his vocation. His word is taken above the other person’s. It is similar to a priest.  That’s an authority position with much trust associated and not earned. It is a part of the helping profession. The priest can say, “No, I didn’t do that. I swear to God, I didn’t do that.” And who’s going to believe you? One would question, “Father who represents God is the problem?” It’s like trying to say that the cop is the problem. Because in these vocations, they often cover for each other. That’s what’s starting to break down. That’s what’s being eroded in the Catholic Church, but it’s taken years. 

Dr. Nedelescu: It’s taken decades. Earlier, you said that the Catholics are trying to say these are cases that happened in the 70s and 80s. But the truth is, I just read about a current case; they’re happening in the present. The priest was ordained in 2020, and got caught abusing in 2022. 

I wanted to add one more thing when we were speaking of predators. Grenz and Bell (2001) categorized offenders as three types: predators, wanderers or lovers. Predators have no moral restrictions in using their position of power to manipulate and use other people. Grenz and Bell state that this type of leader is “charismatic”, actively seeking to abuse women and is often a serial abuser. He will immediately move onto his next targeted victim. The wanderer does not actively seek out women to abuse, but a life crisis leads him to sexualize his own needs and to sexually abuse women. Finally, the lover leader thinks he is “in love” with a congregant, even if that woman is married. Importantly, all of these types (predator, wanderer and lover) exhibit predatory behavior and there is absolutely no difference in terms of how this abuse impacts the victims, their families or the congregation. The motivation is different but the behavior is predatory and the abuse impacts those exploited in the same way.      

Jacobsen: It also demystifies the abuser by giving some evidence-based classification. Hollywood has done these portrayals, sometimes accurate, many times not. So, we have this image of a ravaging lunatic who abuses. But there are types, and you can classify those, which can help. Dorothy’s recommendation of putting informational pamphlets in churches and cathedrals and bringing them in can help. You can know what to look for rather than have a generic “help is available” message.

Small: Right, bring the awareness of signs to look into the churches. If you let it in the house, you show an openness to being part of the solution instead of protecting it. If you encourage people to become aware and say, “We care about you. We can’t have total control. We screen the best we can, and we can still miss them.” Even FBI profilers can have a hard time spotting a sociopath. So, you have all these checks in place. By admitting that they get through and saying, “This is what we are doing as a church to help protect the public and the good priests’ names,” we can work together as a family, not live in denial by burying our heads under the sand. Let’s educate and be informed.

By educating parishioners about these things, you help them out in the world. Children have access to the internet, with men posing as teenagers and kidnapping them often used for sexual purposes. The church is positioned to help people be safe in the institution’s walls, where you might assume there’s safety, but there isn’t. By inviting education and knowledge, you aren’t setting your parishioners up to turn a deaf ear if something happens. You support that knowledge and welcome it. You’re not causing them to go silent to avoid upsetting the apple wagon. You invite it: “Look, we want to protect our church, the people and clergy. This is what you look for.” Let it in. That’s an ounce of prevention.

But what to do with what’s going on takes external pressure, like what Hermina’s saying and what happened historically with the church. It took people trickling through until, finally, the biggest thing happened with the Boston Globe spotlight. In 2019, there was another huge incident in Philadelphia. You can look up that case, where abuse of great proportion became public.  It doesn’t matter if it happened 100 years ago; it will continue to happen because the mindset hasn’t changed. The mindset hasn’t healed. Rhetoric doesn’t change anything. Backing words with action and public awareness do. What are they doing with the kids in school? Don’t just say no to drugs. That’s not enough. Bring experts in and give information. Open up the dialogue. The discussion must take place at home as well.  It makes it easier for someone to come forward to report a problem if the problem is accepted for discussion. 

Jacobsen: It’s a deep historical question. If we’re dealing with these now, have these been happening for centuries? 

Small: Of course. It is time for the problem to come into the light as we evolve as a society and human race. Abuse has far reaching implications even spilling over onto future generations. Abuse is the gift that keeps on giving, is what I have heard it spoken of at support meetings. Traumatized people often turn to addictive substances to escape the pain leading to addictions. The traumatized adult unwittingly causes trauma to their children who grow up suffering anxiety and depression. If we are to heal as a society any abuse must be addressed. Abuse in religious institutions has been concealed far too long. The courage of survivors speaking out braving the obstacles associated with that, advocates and attorneys are the external pressure on these institutions. Otherwise, internal change will not occur. 

Dr. Nedelescu: It has been happening for well over 2000 years but the time to hold these abusers accountable has arrived. 

Small:  The Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. A church hierarchy was established and Rome was made the official center of the Christian Church. After the fall of the Roman Empire the people depended on the church for its needs. Children were treated harshly. Abuse was exacted out in the harshest of punishment, even death.  As society evolves this is no longer acceptable.  Look at drunk driving. Laws changed after the beginning of MADD. People smoked long before the 1960s when the surgeon general put out a warning that smoking is dangerous to your health. As we evolve and learn the impact of certain behaviors we once considered “normal” or that were kept quiet we are realizing the need to educate the public on inherent dangers of certain practices and behavior damaging not only our own health and well-being but that of the public.  Part of evolution is learning, researching, adapting, changing, and realizing the enormous impact of abuse on the human mind. The adverse effect of trauma on the brain is well known through research. It creates behaviors that injure self and society.  The jails are full of traumatized people who turn to substances which further compound the adverse symptoms making healing almost impossible. 

We are living at a time where information is abundant and accessible to assist with change that must occur internally and most often preceded by external pressure. Sentinel events catch our attention. We can learn from the past and change our approach.  Narcissism is an epidemic, and so is addiction. It is important as a society to awaken from fantasy and the myth that our religious institutions are absolutely safe and above the law if we are to bring change. The trickle effect of consistent attention in the media is the trickling of truth that can penetrate denial and misperceptions. 

Jacobsen: We’ve also been making the opposite mistake, right? We are taking the moment’s hubris, thinking, “We have these facts now; we have more stories coming forward. Therefore, we are in a perfect moment now.” We are in a lucky period to make a drastic change. It could end up being a much longer process; it could be incremental, there could be many losses and not be a straightforward evolution. Could that also be a mistake in this kind of work?

Small: Can you rephrase that?

Jacobsen: The hubris of the moment, thinking or feeling that we have these stories and these facts now. Therefore, we are perfectly primed to make radical changes in the trajectory of the church and the treatment of people who have been abused and to provide a space for people to come forward and make institutional, cultural changes. In other words, we can make rapid change since we are now talking about it because we are here with these facts. Could that be wishful thinking?

Dr. Nedelescu: I don’t think that change will be made rapidly. 

Small: Look at the problem of global warming. It has become an issue that can no longer be pushed aside for the future. Issues that have been brewing for so long and are deeply entrenched in our operations are normalized and ignored in order to keep going. Until an awakening occurs which I believe we are absolutely seeing at this unprecedented time.  Society is in trouble. Now, more than ever, there is knowledge we didn’t have previously. There are trauma-informed therapists who are skilled at helping process traumas as well as CBT and other modalities to treat trauma. There is the use of the 12-step approach for helping with improving behavior and helping recover from addiction by helping individuals form healthier connections needed for healing from trauma associated with injury caused by people who were deeply wounded or even evil. If we study trauma and what causes it, then we can seek to address it and apply laws and matters of justice to punish the offenders and bring restitution to survivors who are injured in the church.  We need to inform people that it is still happening and not something from the past.  

We can no longer turn a deaf ear and blind eye any more than we would to any other helping profession. No abuse belongs in the families or any of our institutions. Yet, it will still happen. That is why education, support for those victimized and laws to penalize offenders are needed. Think of the child who’s in an abusive home, goes to school and is bullied by students and abused by a teacher directly or perhaps through silent complicity and goes to church and gets abused by a clergy member. Is that possible? Yes, because the child is already worn down, making them more susceptible to being abused which continues throughout the life cycle. We may not be able to eradicate the issue of abuse, but we can certainly bring awareness that in the places where we turn for help, no one is above the law. Nobody gets to escape accountability. There are consequences that must be acknowledged and addressed. 

Jacobsen: I’m getting more at the sense of someone viewing individuals coming forward and doing the work you’re doing as Pollyanna upstarts. I can give a personal example from my hometown. I was from Fort Langley. The largest private university is there. It’s evangelical. They have the equivalent status of Liberty University in Canada. They had Supreme Court cases for a law school denied because of a covenant they had to sign that was anti-LGBTQ, etc. I interviewed the president of the university. Before him, there was another president of the university who held that status for over 30 years.

As you know, Hermina, that’s very unusual. He had the longest-standing presidency of any university president at any Canadian university. He resigned around 2006-2007. Before that, a woman had come forward with a sexual harassment claim. I was working at restaurants in that town because it’s my small town, and journalism is in a tough spot. It doesn’t pay poorly, so you get money otherwise. I worked at one of those restaurants with someone who worked with him then. This is all to the Pollyanna upstart point. I remember talking to her, and I said, “What about that case of the harassment?” She responded, “Well, his wife just died. He was lonely.” I had my response inside. I didn’t want to be rude. The idea that he was lonely subtly implies that you can’t change human nature or a man in power’s nature. When you’re coming forward, which is what I mean by Pollyanna upstarts, you’re over-optimistic in thinking you can change something as deeply embedded as human nature. What might be our response to that crowd?

Small: You just hit that on the head right there. That was said to me the other day by a scientist. I was talking about what happened to me with the priest. He said, “It’s biological, it’s human nature.”

Jacobsen: It’s great when the quiet part is said out loud. I don’t mean that as an insult or an epithet to the man. 

Small: It’s a reality. However, we are called to bring human nature under direction to the higher rational brain and not act from natural raw instinct from the primitive brain’s survival mode. When I informed the pastor what happened, details, when the priest assaulted me? He said, “He was just in a low place in his life and turned to you for comfort. You were in a low place and turned to him as well. It is Holy Week. Pray.”  He was in a position to report him to the diocese but instead made an excuse that may be true but it violated conditions of church employment and his vow of chastity which goes with celibacy. He covered for him instead of taking action. It was “normalized”.  We don’t just get to operate without obeying society’s rules. We’re not tampering with their human nature. We’re telling them that there are laws governing the expression of their free choice. You can choose to have sex in appropriate situations, but you can’t gratify natural impulses simply because of human nature. “I was lonely.” And it’s like, okay, buddy. When your freedom of choice interferes with somebody else’s safety and their freedom to choose, you lose your freedom. We are not animals.  

 Jacobsen: It’s one of those fundamental understandings around international human rights and international humanitarian law. Having one’s individualistic freedom is balanced contextually with others’ rights. Whether you’re taking transcendentalist moral ethics found in traditional religions or an international human rights context, they are all principles that semi-conflict or rub against one another. The balance lies in not being restricted to expressing healthier ways but rather in not doing something illegal that causes harm to another person. 

Small:  Take alcohol, for instance. People of age have a right to drink. But do you have the right to get behind the wheel of a car and place other people in danger? So, yes. Your last sentence is a logical and rational conclusion. 

Jacobsen: There’s a phenomenon called the “J-A-Q,” just asking questions. They call it “J-A-Q-ing off.” The idea is that someone asks questions provocatively to provoke or to dismiss you, making you have a soundbite they can then use to dismiss you. People don’t ask those kinds of questions about things like drinking at work. 

Small: It’s asking questions and looking for holes. It’s about seeking to debate for the sake of debate, not seeking to understand, but rather asking questions to find holes and undermine the other person. I believe they’re just trying to tear the other position down. I once attended a debate by an atheist and Christian. The atheist was not attempting to seek understanding but to find a hole to discredit the other’s position. 

Jacobsen: In debate forums, they ask questions to find flaws in the other side, not to understand truly but to shoot it down. 

Small:  When I went through the litigation process the lawyer said, “Don’t be too dismayed. They will come at you the same way they would come at a child who went through the same thing.” He had litigated several clergy abuse cases for adults abused as children. They went at the adult abuse as a child the same way.  The abuse took place when they were children, and there’s no way that was their fault. It wasn’t my “fault” either, but the same line of questioning was used, which is shocking.

Dr. Nedelescu: So, all that aside, I think they’re trying to get the offender off the hook by saying the child or victim encouraged it. 

Small: It’s gaslighting because the priest shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. Yes, the victims are often blamed. Even if the adult threw herself at the priest, he has the greater responsibility because of the imbalance of power. If an adult acted that way, there would be something that was not right. It demonstrates a vulnerability in that adult because an adult doing that is operating out of emotional wounds, not their higher logical mind. 

Jacobsen: You can make a hypothetical like a denominational Christian where women can join the clergy and get as much status as men. If a priest and priestess fall in love, get married, and have kids, but then one claims sexual assault against the other, even if those changes are made, the act of abuse is still there.

Small:  Yes. You can have a nun and a priest where the priest has higher power than the nun, but if they have feelings for each other, they might fall in love and leave their vows after a careful period of discernment. There is still an imbalance of power, though. Some priests violate nuns who are still in their orders, and they have no say. If they report it, they fear the risk of losing their positions. Children born into these unions often ended up in orphanages. 

Abuse also occurs between two persons in equal positions of power. Nuns also abuse.  Nuns have abused novices who are under their direction and training, similar to seminarians. There is a power imbalance. Nuns abuse nuns, priests abuse priests, and priests abuse seminarians. This dynamic is still there, with adults being abused within their order. There’s still a pecking order, and those seeking to stay in that order have someone in a higher position sexually exploiting them. We’re talking about abuse, abuse of power, exploitation, and bringing attention to these issues. It’s happening in other religions as well. The Orthodox Church is second in size to the Catholic Church, so bringing it to attention is very important. They are right behind the Catholic Church in size. How could they deny abuse in its church?

Jacobsen: Does the Eastern Orthodox Church have nuns or the equivalent of nuns?

Dr. Nedelescu: Yes, they have nuns and monks, and they have novices who are in training, as well as the more established nuns. Abuse happens there as well. I saw one firsthand when I was in Jerusalem. I worked at Hebrew University for about two years. Once, I stayed at one of these housings they sometimes rent out, and I saw firsthand abuse by an Orthodox nun towards another Orthodox nun. So, the Orthodox Church does have nuns and monks, and they’re supposed to take a vow of chastity.

Jacobsen: Would the Eastern Orthodox Church handle cases where the nun takes a vow, the priest takes a vow, the priest rapes the nun, and the nun becomes pregnant, dealing with the double moral injury of being pregnant as a nun and having taken that vow of chastity that was forcibly taken from her by the priest? Are those the same cases popping up there?

Dr. Nedelescu: I still need to look into that research. My colleague Katherine has spoken about abuse in monasteries more, but we still need to conduct the research. 

Jacobsen: Is there anything you want to cover that I still need?

Dr. Nedelescu: Gosh, what do you think, Dorothy? You covered everything I wanted to, giving enough time to allow the conversation to flow. If anything comes up, I’ll bring it up to you again, or Dorothy could. 

Small: I think we covered everything thoroughly, and there will always be “what if” or “what about” questions. The point is, look at how laws for drunk driving changed due to advocacy from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Before that, the laws governing drunk driving weren’t what they became after. It takes a crisis to bring something forward. That is human nature. We tend to escape and get away with something once, then think we can keep getting away. Eventually, we think it’s normal and dismiss it until a crisis happens. In my situation my life crashed, and I couldn’t stay silent. Remaining silent would have killed me. This was the last straw. I was willing to bear the fallout and take the hatred from the world. I realized I’ve been enabling my abusers since I was a child because that’s how I adapted to survive. I learned to abuse myself by tolerating abuse, and it kept going. 

Jacobsen: In this way, silence is complicity; it’s a crime against yourself.

Small: When I reported, I never intended to file a lawsuit. I advocated for myself and asked for counseling. When I was ready, I wanted to return to church and sing again.  I was denied any ministry in my church community. I asked the pastor why he banned me, and he said it was because of a scandal. I told him it wasn’t my scandal. I went to the bishop, and although he said I had been abused, it makes him sick and that he prays for me, he said it wasn’t his policy to interfere with local parish decisions on volunteers. Yet, he had the power to send my priest abuser back to his country but would not call the pastor to request he drop the ban?  The bishop said, “The volunteer position is for the parishioners, not for the sake of the volunteer.” I told him. “I am a parishioner, and singing in the church is part of my relationship with Christ. It fulfills a purpose for the other parishioners, so it is for the parishioner.” His answer felt arrogant and dismissive. They are used to power and control and not being confronted especially by a lay woman. 

Dr. Nedelescu: When you do, they crumble. They don’t know what to do. 

Small: I asked the bishop to pay for counseling until the pastor is ready to let me come back. The victim advocate told me the bishop said more counseling wouldn’t help with “your  problem with your pastor”. Therefore, additional counseling after what was authorized was denied. They said, “You could go somewhere else. You can go to any other church you choose.” I didn’t want to go elsewhere. I would not have chosen to be in any other parish prior to the abuse. I was bonded and attached with the church community like a family. During confession I asked the priest, “What do I do?” He suggested, “Maybe God wants to use your voice outside the church walls. Have you ever asked God what He wanted?” I hadn’t thought of that. The next morning, in prayer, I asked, “What do you want me to do?” I grabbed my laptop and searched for clergy abuse attorneys. I found one with a psychology degree, called him, and he listened. He said, “You wouldn’t have to pay for a lawyer; it comes out at the end. We will pay for therapy. The diocese will pay us.” He stated he was impressed by my efforts at self advocacy for ten months. He warned me that I was close to the statute of limitations. That motivated me to act. I believe it was God’s hand because the timing was impeccable. Without everything that transpired, I wouldn’t be in this position right now. My voice is used outside the church walls and returned inside recently as I returned to church and once again after over eight years I am singing in a choir. How could I do both comfortably if I were against the church, priest, or God? 

Dr. Nedelescu: That’s right. When you have a calm demeanor.

Small: Everything I’ve done has helped me heal. It’s all about healing while bringing light and truth into the darkness of silent complicity. I am committed to standing for the truth, no matter the cost. The truth is why I’ve healed, continuing to follow it even when it’s uncomfortable. Although difficult to receive and to speak the truth, it is the only thing that eventually sets things in proper order and brings healing.  It is important to acknowledge our emotions; however, the truth must prevail. What is the right thing to do? Our feelings will settle down. That’s how I got here. I’m in better shape now because of what happened and what I chose to do with it. If I were against God, how could I have healed when nothing else worked for years? It took the event in the church, getting sick and tired, standing up, and finding someone to listen to me to realize someone cared. There was a reserve of strength deep within. Then, I put great effort into self-recovery. 

It gave me the incentive to fight for my life because someone in a position of power heard me and stood up for me against a place of power. That was the therapeutic part of having a lawyer. I never considered using a lawyer, but he was better than the priests I dealt with. Destruction happened in the church with a priest. Healing began with an attorney and his law office.  

Dr. Nedelescu: What an important comment you made. We were in Cambridge last year. We can end on this. I was speaking to a theologian friend, Dr. Sr. Vassa Larin, also a nun, about how other professions such as neurosurgeons and others who do good for humanity could be ordained too. There are many professions in the world. So why give all the power to the cleric? When there are others who do much good in the world. 

Small: If I were against God and did something against Him it would not have ended with my recovery beyond where I was before it happened. My entire life was connected to what happened in the church. I had to heal my whole life to heal from the church. That was actually brilliant of God to use what was intended to destroy for His purpose of bringing healing. How did that happen? By speaking out from a position of love for God and wishing justice. I asked God, “Who will speak for You? They’re defiling Your image and hurting Your children. It is hurting the church and good clerics. Who will speak on Your behalf?” I said, “I’ll do that. I will speak for You too.” I sought to use the situation to heal and not let what happened keep me in a victim mindset. Good conquers evil.  

Jacobsen: Justice is part of moral human nature, too. 

Small: God loves justice. There is no abuse in God. None. Those acting abusively don’t represent God. Those abused who stand up do. It’s all twisted. The church is being cleansed by those whom it hurt. It seems that the abused might be the saints bringing light to the church for cleansing. My spiritual director told me that those abused in the church are like the slaughter of the innocent when King Herod ordered the murder of all infant males from aged two and under after hearing of Christ’s birth. The abuse revealed to me my deepest vulnerability so I could go after it and bring healing and knowledge so hopefully I will be less likely to be prey to another predator anywhere but especially the church. Christ rose after death. With much work I have risen above the ashes. It takes a long time, and it is a painful journey. We do not deserve to be traumatized in any institution, especially in the safe haven of our churches.

Dr. Nedelescu: You’re a natural theologian, Dorothy. Thank you, Scott and Dorothy.

Small: After listening today, would you say your understanding is greater now?

Jacobsen: My self-understanding, too, is reflecting on whether I was that person who thought, “These people coming forward are full of it,” and then generating opposition. How might critics respond? Giving open air to that and responding live is valuable; I’ve gained much self-insight from you two in response. As everyone agrees, building the database, gathering stories, and parsing what abuse is are easy. But where there’s disagreement, bringing some of this to light is challenging and educational; putting myself in that position live is helpful, too.

Dr. Nedelescu: That makes sense. 

Small: We’re all learning here. You hear my tone. I’m not upset. I’ve been through it all and returned as an advocate, which is also part of the healing process. I feel empowered. Hopefully with knowledge, recovery or early traumas, individuation along with secure boundaries and much self awareness I’ll be in a better position to protect myself.  

Dr. Nedelescu. We’re all on the same coast. Good evening. Bye, everyone. 

Small: Goodbye, Scott and Hermina. 

—

Further Internal Resources (Chronological, yyyy/mm/dd):

Historical Articles

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 1: Adam Metropoulos (2024/01/11)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 2: Domestic Violence (2024/01/12)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 3: Finances (2024/01/16)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 4: Sex Abuse (2024/01/17)

Interviews

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu on Clergy-Perpetrated Sexual Abuse (2024/06/02)

Katherine Archer on California Senate Bill 894 (2024/06/11)

Dorothy Small on Abuse of Adults in the Roman Catholic Church (2024/06/16)

Melanie Sakoda on Orthodox Clergy-Related Misconduct (2024/06/23)

Professor David K. Pooler, Ph.D., LCSW-S on Clergy Adult Sexual Abuse (2024/07/21)

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu & Dorothy Small: Ecumenical Catholic-Orthodox Discourse (2024/07/24)

Press Releases:

#ChurchToo Survivors Call on CA Governor Gavin Newsom (2024/06/09)

License & Copyright

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.