Religious Sexual Violence

Religious sexual violence, sometimes referred to as clergy abuse, is any act of sexual violence perpetrated by a religious leader. There are thousands of religions in the world, making it difficult to gauge the prevalence of religious sexual abuse. However, a few studies have attempted to estimate the rate of sexual abuse in a handful of religious groups. The Roman Catholic Church has had many widely reported allegations of sexual misconduct, and a recent study found that 4.4% of all clergy members in Germany had faced such accusations.¹ Approximately 44% of Protestant church members report experiencing sexual misconduct at church.² Out of all of the allegations of child sexual abuse in the Christian Congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses, none were reported to police, despite perpetrators confessing to the abuse in half of the cases.³ 

There are additional factors at play concerning sexual violence that is perpetrated by a religious leader that can serve as an additional weight for survivors to carry as they work on healing from the trauma. PAVE/Survivors.org recognizes that every religion is unique and that different sects practice these religions differently. We also recognize that these acts are committed by individuals who weaponize faith. The intention of this article is to broadly summarize some of the dynamics surrounding religious sexual violence, not to overlook or oversimplify any religion.

Power Imbalance

Religious leaders are highly respected in their communities and are often inherently trusted by members of the religion because they are often supposed to play the role of a moral compass. Leaders are often outwardly virtuous and provide emotional support to members of the religion. In some religions, they are seen as having a closer relationship with their higher power, or in some cases, they are perceived as an extension of that higher power. 

This power and assumed morality has multiple implications when it comes to sexual violence. Firstly, the trust that members put into their religious leaders can lead parents or guardians to leave their children with these individuals unsupervised. Anyone, not just children, may be more inclined to let their guard down around a religious leader or doubt their experience if they are inappropriate. 

Concerns for inaction or retaliation are greater when the perpetrator is a religious leader who is high up in the hierarchy. Survivors may fear that speaking out may ostracize them from their family and/or community, or they are trying to cope after that has happened.They may not be believed because the leader is highly respected as a moral leader of the community. It is not uncommon for religious organizations to receive reports of abuse and do nothing, or simply relocate the leader to another place of worship.⁴

Shame

In many religions, there is a level of shame surrounding sex. The concepts of purity and virginity are common in many denominations and can send the message that sex is dirty, immoral, and a form of both self-disrespect and disrespect to one’s higher power, particularly when having it outside of marriage. This gives sex the power to determine one’s worth as a human being. While this isn’t true, and sexual assault is not the same as sex, those who hold those beliefs can be greatly affected if they are sexually assaulted and may feel a significant loss of self-worth. They may fear that they no longer have the approval of their higher power, especially if the perpetrator was the same sex and they belong to a religious group that disapproves of same-sex sexual activity. 

Not only can shame surrounding sex lead survivors to internalize their emotions even more, it can also make it harder for them to disclose. When survivors are aware that their family and community hold particular views about sex, it can be taboo to discuss any sexual act, and many survivors of religious abuse report being shamed due to the assault. Viewing sex as a taboo can also result in less sex education, which can make it harder for survivors to communicate what happened to them and label it as sexual assault. 

The concepts of purity and virginity also place more of the blame on a woman than on a man if any kind of sexual contact happens between them, even if the woman did not consent. Women may be portrayed as a seductress who manipulated the religious leader if they choose to come forward.

Weaponizing Faith

In some cases of religious sexual violence, the perpetrator coerces the victim-survivor by weaponizing their faith. Perpetrators know the strong influence of their faith and can use their devotion to take advantage of them. They may be told that what they are doing is an act of worship that will please their higher power, or that they will suffer in the after-life if they do not engage. They may be made to feel like they are “the chosen one” or that being in the religious leader’s inner circle brings them closer to their higher power. 

Some religions engage in a practice where a religious leader listens to confessions of immoral acts from those within the congregation, often referred to as confession. Leaders can weaponize what they learn and coerce victim-survivors by threatening to share these confessions. Or they may tell them that the only way to be forgiven is to engage in sexual acts. Confession can be weaponized, because the religious leader is the only person who can tell them that their higher power has forgiven them.

In relation to the concepts of purity and virginity, perpetrators may attribute the abuse to lust by  accusing survivors of seducing them, which they frame as the survivor’s fault. This can lead survivors to believe that as well, and as a result, discourages them from reporting. 

Weaponizing Homophobia

Research has demonstrated that sexual violence perpetrated by male religious leaders against boys is the most common form of sexual violence, particularly within the Catholic Church.^1,5 At the same time, many of these religious groups do not support same-sex sexual interactions, whether or not they are consensual. Homophobia that can exist in these communities adds an additional layer that can serve to silence survivors.

Extremist Groups

People can also weaponize religion by creating sects that push extreme ideas, or take a religious text out of context to try and justify ideas and behaviors that are harmful. Or, they may create a new set of beliefs and weaponize faith as a whole. Perpetrators can use the victim-survivor’s devotion to their religious and/or spiritual beliefs to coerce them into joining a practice that slowly becomes more extreme,including sexually coerced acts in the name of worship.

Repentance/Absolution

Some religions believe that people can be absolved of immoral acts if they turn to their higher power to express regret and ask for forgiveness, a concept known as repentance. Cases of sexual abuse may be overlooked or otherwise improperly handled because the perpetrator repented. Not only does this invalidate the survivor, making it harder for them to heal, but the perpetrator continues to occupy the role that they abused.

Grooming

Perpetrators more often than not groom individuals who they have easy access to and a reasonable excuse as to why they are spending so much time getting close to the victim-survivor. They also try to integrate themselves into the victim-survivor’s life by becoming close with their family. Religious leaders are in a position where they may form close, emotionally driven relationships with members of the religion, which is not simply tolerated, but encouraged. As a result, victim-survivors and those around them come to trust and rely on their religious leaders for support and guidance during difficult times, which ultimately creates a scenario that enables them to groom. The perpetrator’s position of power and weaponization of faith are often used to groom victim-survivors.

Impact on Faith

After experiencing religious sexual violence, survivors often develop a difficult relationship with religion. They may question their beliefs if the perpetrator weaponized those beliefs in order to abuse them. Or, they may develop harmful beliefs in order to justify the assault, because it is otherwise too difficult to cope with. Victim-survivors may be uncomfortable returning to their place of worship because it is a trigger or they have been ostracized from other members of the religion. 

It’s important to remember that individuals can continue to maintain their faith separate from those who abused them. Experiencing religious abuse doesn’t mean that religion is something harmful as a whole. Rather, it means that there are people who choose to weaponize religion to their own advantage. Religious abuse is never the victim-survivors fault and they deserve support, validation, and to rebuild their relationship with their beliefs.

Sources

1. Hunt, G. R., Mathews, B., Higgins, D. J., Finkelhor, D., Willis, M. L., Haslam, D. M., Lawrence, D., Franziska Meinck, Thomas, H. J., Malacova, E., Pacella, R. E., & Scott, J. G. (2024). The prevalence of child sexual abuse perpetrated by leaders or other adults in religious organizations in Australia. Child Abuse & Neglect, 106946–106946. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106946
2. Dreßing, H., Dölling, D., Hermann, D., Kruse, A., Schmitt, E., Bannenberg, B., Hoell, A., Voss, E., & Salize, H. J. (2019). Sexual Abuse at the Hands of Catholic Clergy. Deutsches Arzteblatt international, 116(22), 389–396. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2019.0389
3. The 2019 Sexual Misconduct and Churchgoers Study. Lifeway Research, 2019.
4. Wright, Katie, and Shurlee Swain. “Speaking the Unspeakable, Naming the Unnameable: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.” Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 3 Apr. 2018, pp. 139–152, https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2018.1467725.
5. Armbruster, A. (2022). On the undisclosed transfer of abusive Catholic priests: A field theoretical analysis of the sexual repression within the Catholic Church and the use of legitimate language. Critical Research on Religion, 10(1), 61-77. https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032211015282