July Digest (2026): Clergy Power Awareness, Vulnerance, DARVO, and More: New and Established Terms for Understanding Clergy Abuse
From established concepts, such as DARVO, to newer terminology, including clergy power awareness, this issue is dedicated to expanding the language we use to understand clergy abuse.
In This Edition:
As clergy abuse research expands, new terms help explain the experiences of survivors and clarify the dynamics of harm, power, and institutional response within religious contexts.
A new paper explains clergy power awareness (CPA), a robust, interdisciplinary understanding of clergy power that can aid in a foundational understanding to prevent misuse and foster accountability.
What is Vulnerance? A Researcher Explains the Inherent Ability to Cause Harm in Pastoral Roles
An interview with researcher and theologian Dr. Ute Leimgruber on vulnerance, a concept that highlights the inherent power to harm embedded in positions of authority, interpersonal relationships, theological frameworks, and social structures.
What is Clericalism? Why Clergy Abuse is More Than Just a Few “Bad Apples”
How clergy abuse is sustained by institutional structures of power rather than merely by a few corrupt individuals.
Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Dr. Jennifer Gómez’s research provides a framework for understanding how abuse, betrayal, and institutional responses can shape survivor experiences.
Broken links? Scroll down for content.
Content Warning: Contains references to sexual abuse and spiritual abuse.
Letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
On LinkedIn, I saw a humorous meme entitled “How You Think Academic Publication Works.” The image depicted characters from SpongeBob SquarePants riding a dizzying rollercoaster, with captions at various peaks and valleys along the ride.
The captions began with “Have an idea,” then moved to “Literature review: Someone already did it (kind of),” “Refine the idea (again),” “Data collection disaster,” “Analyze for weeks,” “Submit paper,” “Rejected,” “Cry. Eat. Revise. Repeat.,” “Address 27 reviewer comments,” “Another round of reviews,” “More analyses. More figures. Less sleep.,” and lastly, “Finally accepted! (No one cares).”
The punchline, “no one cares,” is depressingly hilarious and gave me a hearty laugh because of its bleak truth. For many researchers, deeply meaningful and arduous work receives little attention beyond a small circle of scholars. This reality is one of the reasons I created CSM Research Insights.
Research on clergy sexual abuse is growing, amplifying the voices of survivors and increasing our understanding of the profound impact of these experiences. Yet many people in religious communities, educational settings, and clinical practice remain unaware of this scholarship.
CSM Research Insights exists to bridge that gap by making emerging research more accessible to survivors, advocates, clergy, educators, clinicians, and anyone seeking to better understand clergy sexual abuse and its consequences.
This issue focuses on the importance of understanding key concepts and terms related to clergy sexual abuse. It includes an interview with Dr. Ute Leimgruber on the term vulnerance; an article by Dr. Jason Martin on clericalism; and an overview of concepts introduced by Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Dr. Jennifer Gómez related to betrayal trauma. I also feature my latest peer-reviewed publication on the urgent need for clergy power awareness.
As with every issue, the information is grounded in peer-reviewed research and includes links for further exploration. You can find additional clergy sexual misconduct research on our main website, ClergySexualMisconduct.com, in the research section.
As always, thank you for reading, learning, and helping to raise awareness of this important issue. So many survivors have selflessly lent their voices and stories to these studies, and we will make sure they are heard because we care deeply.
Sincerely,
T. P. Zamora
Editor, CSM Research Insights
What is Clergy Power Awareness? New Publication Explains Its’ Need and Importance in Understanding Clergy’s Unique Role Power
A new paper explains clergy power awareness (CPA), a robust, interdisciplinary understanding of clergy power that can aid in a foundational understanding to prevent misuse and foster accountability.
A key challenge in educating clergy and congregants about clergy sexual misconduct and its traumatic impact on survivors is the lack of awareness that clergy hold a position of authority over those they serve, and that this role power creates an imbalance that privileges the clergyperson.
The authority inherent in the clergy’s role influences how parishioners behave toward them, including showing deference, respect, and trusting them with personal problems and secrets. Clergy can use their power for tremendous good, empowering those they lead and treating those entrusted to them with care. Abuse, however, occurs when this power is used to exploit others, and it is compounded when victims are shamed for being overpowered and abused by those they were taught to implicitly trust.
Published in the Journal of Sociology and Christianity (Vol. 16, No. 1), “The Urgent Need for Clergy Power Awareness: Impact from Individuals to Society,” emphasizes that both clergy and congregants should cultivate a comprehensive, interdisciplinary understanding of clergy power, termed clergy power awareness (CPA), to prevent the abuse of power and promote accountability.
Unlike static principles meant solely to prevent clergy sexual misconduct, CPA is an active, evolving body of knowledge that offers a perspective for interpreting clergy power and its layered impact. Because discussions of clergy power are frequently framed in the context of clergy sexual misconduct or spiritual abuse, the paper expands the conversation by examining how clergy power shapes not only individual and localized church experiences but also broader society.
Clergy have the power to impact various communities by teaching congregants how to relate to them. For example, many Black preachers used their pulpits and religious texts to argue for equality during the Civil Rights Movement, prompting their congregations to act.
Conversely, George Whitefield, a highly celebrated white preacher, used his clergy power to advocate for the legalization of slavery in Georgia, using theological justification to support systemic oppression.
Such illustrations, including a fictional vignette grounded in research, demonstrate the diverse manifestations of clergy power and its influence on individuals, communities, institutions, and even nations.
The peer-reviewed essay, thus, addresses more than clergy sexual abuse and also examines how clergy power intersects with religious nationalism, responses to child and spousal abuse, and related issues. It stresses the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives on clergy power and the need to incorporate lived experiences as knowledge.
In other words, various disciplines offer important insights into the impact of clergy power, and so do the stories of those affected by clergy power, whether positively or negatively. This is why CPA is dynamic knowledge; as research advances, our knowledge and awareness of clergy power expand and deepen.
You can begin to build your clergy power awareness by reading the open-access paper in full online. Read “The Urgent Need for Clergy Power Awareness: Impact from Individuals to Society.”
What is Vulnerance? A Researcher Explains the Inherent Ability to Cause Harm in Pastoral Roles
An interview with researcher and theologian Dr. Ute Leimgruber on vulnerance, a concept that highlights the inherent power to harm embedded in positions of authority, interpersonal relationships, theological frameworks, and social structures.
Sexual abuse survivors, advocates, and researchers have increasingly called for a shift away from explanations that center on victim vulnerability and toward analyses that examine the structural, cultural, and relational conditions that enable abuse and constrain disclosure. When attention shifts away from the perpetrator’s conduct and the conditions that enable harm, and instead treats the survivor as the explanation for the abuse, the structural and relational dynamics that make abuse possible are obscured, and responsibility is often redirected toward the victim. In many cases, adults who are not perceived as sufficiently “vulnerable” have their experiences dismissed or mischaracterized as “consensual,” despite the presence of significant power imbalances, coercion, or exploitation.
In Dr. Kathryn A. Flynn’s study of clergy sexual abuse survivors, she describes the survivors as “highly educated, mature, intelligent, responsible women with spouses and families” who “donated significant time to their churches.” This challenges assumptions that clergy sexual abuse primarily involves socially or emotionally “vulnerable” individuals.
Sociologist Dr. Jason Martin also addresses this in his 2023 paper “Critical Reflections on Clericalism and Clergy Misconduct: A Sociological Approach,” in which he critiques the prevailing narrative that primarily highlights survivors’ vulnerabilities and instead proposes a survivor-centered model that emphasizes perpetrators’ covetous behavior and their strategic exploitation of survivors’ strengths, such as their empathy, trust, and deep faith.
In fact, anyone who sits under the spiritual leadership of another is in a vulnerable position, where the clergy person, who holds a position of authority over them, can choose to abuse that power.
The term vulnerance gives us a way to define and understand this particular power to harm.
Dr. Ute Leimgruber, full professor of pastoral theology and homiletics at the University of Regensburg, defines vulnerance as “the special readiness to use violence. It is the power to harm someone or something. This becomes particularly clear in the example of pastoral care: A pastoral care setting is never simply harmless, the situation itself carries a vulnerance, that means a built-in power to wound the person who seeks help. Vulnerance of pastoral care lies in the institutional and theological power asymmetries of the situation and the relationship between the persons.”
Dr. Ute Leimgruber is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics at the University of Regensburg, a member of the Theological Commission of the Catholic German Women’s Association, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Herbert Haag Foundation. She is also an advisory member of the Pastoral Commission (III) of the German Bishops’ Conference. Her research focuses on spiritual and sexual abuse of adult women.
Vulnerability is still an important factor to consider, as Dr. Leimgruber explains, “Vulnerability and vulnerance belong together; they interact. Vulnerability means being open to harm. Vulnerance is the power to do the harm, and the crucial point is that this power to harm doesn’t only sit inside a person, it can sit inside a situation, a relation, or a whole institution, and it can create a certain form of vulnerability.”
She explains why this distinction is important for understanding clergy sexual abuse of adults. “For a long time, in the Church, someone was only recognized as a victim of sexual abuse if they could be called ‘vulnerable.’ That locates the problem in the victim. People would ask, ‘Was this person especially vulnerable?’ With an adult, the answer was usually no. A capable, healthy adult doesn’t fit the label, so the conclusion became: then nothing abusive really happened.
In this way, adults disappear as possible victims. So, looking only for vulnerability puts the whole weight on the person who was harmed, and treats their vulnerability as a fixed, personal issue. The moment you bring vulnerance into the picture, both the focus and the accountabilities flip. Instead of asking what was ‘vulnerable’ (or weak, or in need of protection) about the person, you ask what gave the situation and the perpetrator the power to harm.”
Dr. Leimgruber, who is also a member of the theological commission of the Catholic German Women’s Association, has written extensively on vulnerance in pastoral care. Her new book, written in German, Hidden Patterns of Abuse: What Makes the Abuse of Women Possible, and Why It Goes Unrecognized as Such, is about the recurring patterns that make the abuse of adult women possible and keep it from being seen. Vulnerance is one of the most important concepts in her book.
“In the book, I take a deliberately gender-specific perspective on women as victims,” she shared. “Bringing together the structural conditions that make abuse possible and the cultural and theological mechanisms that keep it from being named, the book shows that the Church does not simply fail to know about abuse against women: it sustains a state of ignorance. The argument develops through the recurring hidden patterns of abuse—in German Missbrauchsmuster. The result is an account of abuse as systemic and predictable rather than exceptional, and with it the claim that learning to see these patterns is the first step toward preventing them.”
Dr. Leimgruber believes that once you take vulnerance seriously, you can no longer treat clergy sexual misconduct as an “affair” between two consenting adults. “Vulnerance is what allows me to name these acts for what they are: abuse, rather than misinterpreting them as consensual relationships,” she explained. “And the failure to recognize this vulnerance is itself one of the patterns that keeps the abuse of adult women invisible.”
“A colleague of mine, Hildegund Keul, a theologian and scholar of religious studies, has researched vulnerability for many years, and she was the first to bring the concept of ‘vulnerance’ into abuse research,” shared Dr. Leimgruber as she recounted how the term came about. The German Women’s Association launched a campaign in response to the countless cases of child abuse within German churches. Many cases of clergy sexual abuse against adult women came to light. They realized this population was being overlooked.
“One common thread stood out,” said Dr. Leimgruber. “Many of the cases follow a similar pattern: the perpetrators gain the women’s trust and later obtain their supposed consent to the sexual acts. It’s like solving a criminal case: what connects the different cases? What’s interesting is that it wasn’t the victims’ particular vulnerability that was connecting the cases, but rather the circumstances in which the sexual abuse took place.”
Dr. Leimgruber recognizes that there are many settings where the abuse of adults can occur. “Whether someone is in a sports organization, the film industry, or a religious community, they are in relationships shaped by dependency and power imbalance. That is what makes it easier for perpetrators.”
In the context of the Catholic Church, she explains that “vulnerance lies in the Catholic Church as an institution, in its theology, and in the pastoral situation itself—beyond any individual relationship between two people. It works through a whole web of intersecting realities at once: the pastor, the person seeking help, the pastoral setting, and the wider systemic, theological, and cultural conditions.”
Dr. Leimgruber also emphasizes the intersectional nature of vulnerance in pastoral care and clergy sexual abuse. “A gender-specific perspective reveals clear patterns,” she explained. “Marginalized persons like women (and persons of color, elderly people, and so on) are more likely to be subjected to epistemic injustices; they are more often overlooked; they are frequently not believed; and dynamics of victim-blaming occur more frequently. The church’s archives are full of such cases of abuse and cover-ups. I want to bring these injustices to light and make it clear that these are not isolated incidents, but systemic patterns.”
Survivors are benefiting from research on vulnerance and its growing use to explain the capacity of individuals and institutions to inflict harm. Dr. Leimgruber has found that the term is a “real eye-opener” for survivors. “Many victims tell me it takes a weight off them, because they no longer have to prove that they were ‘vulnerable.’ Instead, it becomes clear that in certain situations they could not have consented to sex at all, because the vulnerance of a situation rules out consent. For adults who have been abused, telling the story of the injustice they suffered can itself become a shift in power: they get to experience agency and authority over their own lives.”
Researchers are increasingly using the term vulnerance now. Dr. Leimgruber and others have written it into safeguarding measures. “Pastoral workers are now learning that they operate in vulnerant, and that is ‘dangerous’ settings, and that they must be held accountable for what happens there. If they have sex with another person by exploiting the pastoral relationship, it counts as abuse. They are the ones to be held accountable. We are working to turn these insights into prevention and safeguarding, so that the Church no longer lacks adequate protection rules for adults. Because it is precisely the ‘non-recognition of vulnerance in Church settings’ that keeps abuse of adults invisible.”
When it comes to pastoral care, Dr. Leimgruber stresses the importance of recognizing the inherent power dynamics, explaining, “It’s a relationship between two unequal people, inside a system with its own imbalances of power, such as laypeople and clergy, women and men, minors and adults, and so on. Those asymmetries create a real, structural power to use violence. So people aren’t endangered because of some mental or physical deficiency they bring with them; they become vulnerable because of the situation they have stepped into. The moment someone opens up to a priest or a spiritual counselor, they’re already in a setting with a built-in power to harm—and that is what we call vulnerance.”
Access the free PDF of Dr. Ute Leimgruber’s new book, written in German, Hidden Patterns of Abuse: What Makes the Abuse of Women Possible, and Why It Goes Unrecognized as Such. Her website, Missbrauchsmuster.de (“patterns of abuse”), provides additional resources and can be translated using a browser’s built-in translation feature or translation plugin.
What is Clericalism? Why Clergy Abuse is More Than Just a Few “Bad Apples”
How clergy abuse is sustained by institutional structures of power rather than merely by a few corrupt individuals.
By Jason Martin, Ph.D.
It is an interesting quirk of semantics that words and phrases sometimes evolve to directly contradict their original definitions. Like arguing a “moot point” or “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” the term “vested power” has departed significantly from its application in the early church. The concept of vested power initially referred to a garment that was temporarily bestowed along with temporal authority and responsibility.
It was only after bitter disputes in the 11th century between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV that “vested” power came to imply an ordination that could not be revoked. Though manifestations of clergy as possessing an indelible, elevated status vary by denomination, this clerical legacy contributes to the present-day reproduction and persistence of corrupt leadership.
Biblical Ordination
Alternatively, Paul’s first letter to Timothy refers to the “gift” of leadership being given with the collective laying on of hands by the council of elders. While Paul describes the gift itself (not the status) as God-ordained and irrevocable, he is also clear that the recipient has agency to neglect or misuse the gift, thereby failing to yield spiritual profit. The authority that is given via the collective act does not immunize leaders from corruption nor should it shield them from accountability and credential revocation.
If clericalism is unbiblical, and no longer relies on trading obedience for absolution, we have to ask: why and how does it still thrive in the modern church?
The Structural Argument
To answer this question, it is helpful to dig into 21st-century definitions of clericalism defined by experts in the fields of ethics and religious studies. In a 2022 report by Julie Hanlon Rubio and Paul J. Schutz, they define clericalism as “a structure of power that isolates clergy and sets priests above and apart, granting them excessive authority, trust, rights, and responsibilities while diminishing the agency of lay people and religious.”
This definition highlights clericalism as a structural problem. Deeply rooted in an institutionalized understanding of sex, gender, and power, clericalism creates norms and practices that privilege those in authority.
Consider, for example, the widespread assumption: “Clergy naturally have the best interests of everyone at heart.” Such dynamics and assumptions are protected and reproduced by the very people who benefit from the status quo. Because these principles are institutionalized, they provide the systemic staying power that allows abuses of power, such as adult clergy sexual abuse, to persist even in an era when churches should have eradicated it long ago.
The Idealization of the Priest/Pastor
Another important aspect of clericalism embedded in this definition is that certain rights and privileges are granted to the powerful alongside a set of responsibilities associated with unilateral power. In ”Clericalism: The Institutional Dimension of the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis,” C. Colt Anderson and J.D. Long-Garcia describe the idealization of the priest as an exchange where the assumption of holiness and infallible devotion provides both opportunities for abusive clergy while placing a crushing burden on non-abusive clergy.
This burden often leads healthy clergy to withdraw or separate from the communities they serve. The result is a destructive institutional dynamic where non-abusive clergy are expected to overwork, overdeliver, and overperform, while abusive clergy are given free rein to exploit the unwarranted trust of a people yearning for Christ-like purity in their leaders. See this Awake blog post for a full review of Anderson and Long-Garcia’s book.
Combating Elevation and Separation
Recognizing the structural nature of this problem is crucial because structural issues demand structural solutions, which often means change is painfully slow. While necessary, simply removing and punishing bad actors one by one will not solve the underlying crisis. As recent headlines demonstrate, institutional backlash within church structures frequently erases hard-won progress, and what is labeled as “progress” is often just satisficing behavior that does little to effect actual change.
The difficult, slow, and sometimes deeply frustrating work of institutional reform, when it does happen, is the only path forward. It is this work that will ultimately yield church structures in which power, responsibilities, and demands are no longer concentrated among a few power brokers, and in which transparency and accountability become the rule rather than the exception.
Read the full report by Julie Hanlon Rubio and Paul J. Schutz, “Beyond ‘Bad Apples’: Understanding Clergy Perpetrated Sexual Abuse as a Structural Problem and Cultivating Strategies for Change.” This study maps clericalism as a structural reality in the Catholic Church shaped by the interaction of three forces: sex, gender, and power.
Jason Martin, Ph. D., is a social scientist, survivor spouse, whistleblower, and advocate for clergy sexual misconduct survivors. He is the author of “Critical Reflections on Clericalism and Clergy Misconduct: A Sociological Approach,” published in the Journal of Sociology and Christianity.
Betrayal Blindness, Cultural Betrayal Trauma, DARVO, and Other Terms for Understanding Survivor Experiences
Dr. Jennifer Freyd and Dr. Jennifer Gómez’s research provides a framework for understanding how abuse, betrayal, and institutional responses can shape survivor experiences.
In recent decades, new terminology, derived from research, has helped name experiences of abuse survivors. This research, along with many of these terms, has been integrated into studies on clergy sexual abuse, giving language to survivors who often face disbelief, confusion, institutional resistance, and long-lasting psychological harm.
The term DARVO has become popular in the media. DARVO, which stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender, describes a reaction that perpetrators and their defenders may display in response to being held accountable for their actions, such as facing allegations of clergy sexual abuse. When DARVO occurs, the perpetrator adopts the role of the victim and accuses the survivor of being the offender. This term is helpful because survivors of many forms of abuse can relate to it.
For example, DARVO appears in clergy abuse cases when the offender claims they are being persecuted, falsely accused, or even targeted by demonic forces. The institution itself can perpetuate this behavior, committing institutional DARVO. Many survivors have been helped by being able to identify and name these disorienting experiences, which can feel validating.
While this term is gaining attention on popular media outlets, including social media, many people do not know that it was coined by Dr. Jennifer Freyd, an internationally known researcher and pioneer in trauma psychology. Dr. Freyd is Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and the founder of The Center for Institutional Courage, a non-profit organization “dedicated to transformative research and education about institutional betrayal and how to counter it through institutional courage.”
The institute, shortened as Courage, has funded research addressing clergy sexual abuse of adults and children, two of which were highlighted in past editions of CSM Research Insights. You can read about these studies here and here. Research emerging from Courage focuses on institutional courage, institutional betrayal, betrayal trauma, cultural betrayal trauma, and DARVO.
But what do these terms mean exactly? Courage’s website contains a knowledge base that provides key definitions with links to relevant research. To understand these concepts, it is beneficial to start with the term betrayal trauma, which occurs when someone you trust and/or someone who has power over you mistreats you. For example, when a pastor sexually abuses a person under their spiritual care. Research reveals that betrayal trauma causes harm to people psychologically and physically.
Betrayal blindness describes “the unawareness, not-knowing, and forgetting of betrayal traumas. Victims, perpetrators, and witnesses may display betrayal blindness in order to preserve the relationships, institutions, and social systems on which they depend.” For example, a victim of clergy sexual abuse may struggle to fully recognize that the pastor they trusted for spiritual guidance exploited that position of trust. Because acknowledging the betrayal could threaten an important relationship, their faith community, or their sense of spiritual security, they may minimize the abuse, rationalize the pastor’s behavior, blame themselves, or fail to recognize the full traumatic impact until much later. Dr. Freyd and Dr. Pamela J. Birrell explore betrayal blindness in depth in their book, Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren’t Being Fooled.
When an institution you trust and depend on, such as a church and the religious community, mistreats you, it is referred to as institutional betrayal, and research also reveals that this can result in psychological and physical harm. A study by Elisabeth Arnold Ingram found significant relationships between DARVO experiences, institutional betrayal, and psychological outcomes among 115 clergy sexual abuse survivors. 100% of the survivors who participated in the study reported institutional betrayal.
Research by Dr. Krystal Woolston exploring the experiences of adult clergy sexual abuse survivors revealed that “all participants experienced some level of institutional betrayal which left lasting impacts on their ability to achieve posttraumatic growth, and their levels of spirituality, religious commitment, general well-being and flourishing.”
Institutional courage, on the other hand, is described as the antidote to institutional betrayal. This occurs when there is institutional accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and reparations where needed. Research and survivor accounts suggest that institutional courage remains far less common than institutional betrayal in responses to clergy sexual abuse allegations. Sadly, institutional cover-up and impression management are common responses.
While betrayal trauma theory focuses on violations of trust within relationships characterized by dependency, attachment, or power differentials, researchers have also explored how shared cultural identities can deepen the sense of betrayal and intensify the impact of abuse. Building upon betrayal trauma theory, Dr. Jennifer M. Gómez, Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at Boston University and Chair of the Research Advisory Committee at Courage, coined the term cultural betrayal trauma.
Cultural betrayal trauma occurs when someone from the same marginalized group abuses another person from that group within a broader context of societal trauma, such as racism. For example, in the United States, where racism affects Black communities, a Black pastor sexually abusing a Black congregant may constitute cultural betrayal trauma because it violates the (intra)cultural trust and solidarity that marginalized communities often rely upon for support.
This trauma may be compounded by (intra)cultural pressure, when church leaders seek to address the problem “in-house” and tell the victim not to disclose to law enforcement or a therapist because doing so would reflect poorly on the church, the perpetrator, or the broader marginalized community. Research suggests that these traumas are associated with uniquely harmful psychological and cultural consequences.
In her award-winning book, The Cultural Betrayal of Black Women and Girls: A Black Feminist Approach to Healing From Sexual Abuse, Dr. Gómez explains cultural betrayal trauma in detail and discusses what culturally competent trauma therapy and healing can look like within the Black community.
These terms do more than provide academic language for understanding the traumatic experiences of survivors. They help survivors make sense of experiences that are often confusing, isolating, and difficult to describe. Whether the harm involves betrayal trauma, betrayal blindness, institutional betrayal, cultural betrayal trauma, or DARVO, these concepts offer insight into the complex dynamics that can occur when trusted individuals, such as spiritual leaders, and institutions, such as churches, abuse power.
By understanding this research, advocates, clinicians, faith communities, and survivors themselves can better recognize these patterns, respond with greater compassion, and work toward the institutional courage needed to prevent future harm.
Learn more about The Center for Institutional Courage’s research priorities and access its knowledge base.
T. P. Zamora, editor of CSM Research Insights and a sociology student, explores power dynamics and abuse within religious institutions and their multifaceted impact on survivors.