Understanding Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse

SPEAKERS
David Pooler, Julie Roys

Note: This is a rough transcript and may contain some misspellings.

David Pooler  00:00
Justice is the final stage of healing, and this is where we have so much work to do. But for justice to happen, we have to have leaders and institutions that can say, Yes, this happened. It’s real. The injuries are profound and deep, and we’re gonna I’m getting so emotional here. We’re gonna make it right. We’re gonna step in and make it right. We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna make it better. We’re gonna help you heal. That’s where we’re missing it, folks, you

David Pooler  00:52

So I’ve got about 30 minutes, and I’m going to attempt to give you a lot of information about what is adult clergy sexual abuse, so you can better understand it. And I know already that there are multiple survivors in the room who’ve experienced this. So I’m really hoping that not only does this help you see yourself and understand your experience, and just to know that other people see and understand your experience, but that it’s healing and that you’ll actually be refreshed. That’s kind of sounding odd, because this is a pretty heavy topic, but we’re going to go through this and hopefully make some sense of this. So what I’m going to cover is I’m going to give a to get a little bit of overview of church history, and you’ll a bit of church history talking about gender and power. We’ll talk a little bit about clericalism. I’m going to define it. What is adult clergy sexual abuse. I’m going to talk about ministry, because it’s actually an unregulated profession. So we’ll talk briefly about that, because all these are contextual pieces that sort of create this phenomenon of adult clergy sexual abuse. Talk about the impact on victims, what actually happens. And by doing that, I’m going to look at some selected highlights from a national study that I had done, actually, a decade ago. And I’m planning on doing some more research this year, 10 years later. But the selected highlights are going to talk about the survivors in the study and a little bit about policy, reporting and process, and I’m going to end briefly by talking about justice, because honestly, folks, justice is the missing piece. There’s no justice happening. James Baldwin, African American author and writer scholar, said something in the early 60s that is very true. He said, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. We are facing adult clergy sexual abuse and understanding what is we’re going to face the problem, acknowledge it, see it, name it. But we need to take a look at some church fathers, because our history of elevating men and denigrating women has been around for millennia, and I hate to be that blunt about it, but I’m going to read some quotes. Clement of Alexandria said every woman should be filled with shame by the thought she’s a woman. Tertullian said, Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Woman, you are the devil’s doorway. You led astray one whom the devil would not dare attack directly. It was your fault that the Son of God had to die. You should always go in mourning and rags. So the issue of denigrating women and elevating men has been a part of church history, and it can give license for people to misuse their power and abuse. Let’s look at a couple more. Augustine said, Woman was merely man’s help, made a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God, whoa, but as far as man is concerned, he is, by himself, the image of God. Pope Gregory out of the Catholic Church, right? That’s all we were up until about 1500 woman is slow in understanding, and her unstable and naive mind renders her, by way of natural weakness to the necessity of a strong hand in her husband, her use is two fold animal sex and motherhood. So do you see where we’re coming from? Now, I know these, these quotes are taken out of context, and whatever that you don’t get to read. What the person is saying before and after. But just this is disturbing and should give us pause. But this is the history upon which our ideas of how men and women function in the church come from. I’m going to just move forward. There’s many other quotes I could give you, but I’m going to actually move forward to where this leads us, which is what I call gender dualism and opposition. So we have this dualism between men and women, right? Men, we elevate their mind, their reason, they’re strong, they’re active, they’re aggressive. Women, it’s not about the mind, it’s about the body. It’s about emotion, feeling. They’re weak, they’re passive, they’re submissive, dependent and selfless, right? Men can have self interest. Women have to be selfless. So what I’m saying is I don’t agree with this gender dualism, but this is what we have created. And the reason I bring this up is because it is out of this kind of steeped in the DNA of where the church has come from, that we end up with attitudes that are not helpful at all. So the water in which we currently swim is there’s an ism that belongs only to the church, and it’s called clericalism. It’s the elevation and prioritization of a leader and their message, their goals and ideas, to the exclusion of congregants and their goals, wishes and priorities. Leaders benefit from this arrangement by using their added power in ways that benefit them, and then congregants are socialized to believe that dissent or pushback or holding people accountable are not acceptable, and in some cases, it’s not. It’s unChristian. You shouldn’t do this at all. Abusive leaders can feed off of environments in which clericalism flourishes. They’re freer to manipulate, steer and control narratives and get overwhelming support in any in the face of information that suggests harm has occurred on their watch, congregants are less likely to trust their own instincts or do something to rock the boat and often carry the shame of the institution or The perpetrator. If you don’t comply, there is high risk when clericalism is at play. Unfortunately, in 2025 churches are the safest institution for predators and abusers, as they often seek them out, because it is so easy to remain undeterred and undetected. Let’s just name something, right? Some predators in our churches are so gifted that sounds weird. What a predator gifted? Yes, and they seek out leadership jobs. So there was a book written in the late 90s by Niles Freiburg and Mark later, and they talk about ordination as a shame reduction technique. There are people who are banged up and broken and wounded and seek out pastoral and leadership positions to reduce their shame. Because of ordination, I am different than you. I am other than you. But the fact is that we have leaders that are gifted, intelligent and abusive. That is true. We need to acknowledge that this can happen and go together. So because of the current patriarchal structure of religious institutions, most religious leaders are heterosexual men, and most victims of adult clergy sexual abuse are women. It’s primarily an issue of female victimization by males with authority and power. So what is adult clergy sexual abuse? It’s when a leader uses their power position or role to exploit and sexually abuse an adult who is trusting and relying upon them. How do they do this? They use scripture and spiritual admonitions and spiritual authority and touch like prolonged hugs to blur and break down boundaries that exist. Now here’s the fact that I’ve learned from my research right this sometimes takes months and sometimes years. Consent is not being obtained or sought. Consent to engage in sexual activity, for example, takes a robust, thorough conversation about what each person wants, this is not what’s happening with these abusive leaders. They are not seeking it, and so when consent is not given, what happens is a pastor or leader is imposing their wishes and needs on a congregate without their agreement. This is called coercion. Perpetrators. A perpetrator keeps a victim under his control, sometimes for years. And let me just say this, whenever you have a power differential when and there is absolutely a power differential between a pastor and a congregant, the person with more power is always the one responsible for maintaining boundaries. Those of you who are helping professionals who are around in the pre conference Institute and are licensed, you know this sexual relationships are prohibited in these kinds of relationships for exactly these reasons. So it’s about using power to coerce, control and exploit someone in order to be sexual with them.

David Pooler  10:47

The leader grooms the target by blurring boundaries and making sexual activity seem okay or even acceptable. Now here’s some other things that are happening in this grooming process. The leader often in meshes with their target and their family or spouse and simultaneously isolates them from others, including their spouse, by criticizing their support system like he’s not good for you, I’m good for you. You shouldn’t listen to your sister. You shouldn’t you know, they begin to tear them apart from people that could support them by criticizing them, and then they basically an abusive pastor says, I’m the answer. I’m what you need. I have more of what you need and want at the same time. This is so complex, the leader then makes their target feel indispensable by letting them know how essential they are, like, God has brought you into my life. I am learning from you. I need your support. You are essential to me being successful in ministry, right? So someone being targeted feels like, Oh, my God, if I don’t go along with this, then am I interfering with God’s plan and God’s will? So what is the actual status quo? We have some data on this. This is not my research, but comes from Diana Garland’s research. Sort of those of you who sort of know the literature on this did great work from 06, to 2014, and then passed away from pancreatic cancer 10 years ago. But what she found is that 2% 2.1% of women had experienced an unwanted sexual advance from a church leader in their own congregation, and 3.1% of regular church attenders, or basically seven women in the average sized congregation of 400 have experienced an unwanted sexual advance by a church leader since they were 18. So how does it happen? Here’s just a few things. Our churches have a culture of niceness. We have a fear of upsetting authority figures. People are socialized to ignore and override their intuitions. We have this assumption that a leader won’t harm someone. They’re not capable of it. And of course, we have so much access to hidden communication. So talking about clergy, the unregulated profession, they’re not regulated at the state or federal level ordination, right? Varies by denomination. There’s different processes, different types of requirements. Educational requirements vary widely, right? Some, there’s some denominations where you can become a minister with a high school diploma or no formal education at all. Some may require a Master, master of divinity or a Doctor of Ministry. But seminaries folks don’t adequately train ministers about power, boundaries, sexual ethics or consent, and they should be doing that so we we have inadequate theological education around how to manage highly intense interpersonal relationships with vulnerable people, and then responses to the misconduct and adult clergy sexual abuse vary widely by denomination. Some now beginning to understand it. Some beginning to take steps in some places and spaces. This doesn’t happen here. That doesn’t we don’t have that problem. So let’s talk just a moment about power, right? Power is neither good nor bad, but this is a huge part of the equation, because clergy do have power, but power can be used to welcome the powerless, the excluded or the wounded. Power can even be used to protect people or advocate for those in most need. So let’s just say this. So here’s the question, so is anyone vulnerable to abuse? Yeah, anybody who trusts the pastor could be abused. I wanted to just say something about those. Targeted, which is really interesting, people that are actually targeted for abuse tend to be really committed. They love Jesus with all their heart. They’re they’re often Biblically literate, and so they’re preyed upon for those reasons, because often predatory pastors sort of lack empathy, they’re kind of narcissistic, they’re empty, they have low self esteem. And it’s like, if I can have this person, then I’ll be okay. It’s almost a conquest. Does that make sense? Now, sometimes people that are, you know, have that are, I don’t know, really broken in the moment, could be targeted, but that’s and what I’m continuing to learn in my work is that’s not really the profile of people who are targeted. It’s strong, capable, bright, committed, engaged people become the targets for adult clergy sexual abuse. So the fact is, religious institutions get to prioritize on a continuum their image or substance, depth or superficiality, suffering or escape, reputation versus reality, the powerful versus the powerless, dishonesty versus the truth, authority In one person or shared among all of us. Brene Brown said something when the culture of and she named a lot of institutions, but churches were included when the culture of a church mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of that system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of individuals. You can be certain shame is systemic. Money and power are more important than ethics. Accountability does not exist. Control or fear. Control and fear are the management tools, and there’s a trail of devastation and pain, and that’s what we’re talking about in part at this conference is the trails of devastation and pain, but folks were living in it and through it and surviving it and moving forward in healing and creating space for others to heal too. We are becoming the change that is necessary. So let’s talk about the impact on victims, right? There’s this profound layer of abuse they’re betrayed by by the church leader. Often then this is really significant, and I can’t go like majorly into this, but congregations then blame and marginalize and push people out, and we call that institutional betrayal. And in many cases, what happens is churches then rely on legal advice in the aftermath of this, not on the gospel, and that leaves major pain. If you rely on a lawyer to protect you, it’s very difficult then to step in and do the right thing. And sometimes people are still in 2025 misunderstood by professionals. So let’s just talk about a few things with just a tiny bit more depth. I already mentioned that the person with most power is always responsible for maintaining the boundaries to keep people safe. Right? Consent should always be expressed. But here’s the deal, even if someone were to say yes, right, kind of a sort of they said yes to engaging in second sexual activity, it’s so hard to rule out that coercion, undue influence or exploitation were not involved in obtaining that yes, right, because of clericalism, right? This religious authority is using the power differential to control the victim. Now, this is a sad one for us to digest. While clericalism does exist everywhere, these amplified power differentials find a special and cozy home in both the Catholic Church and evangelicalism.

David Pooler  19:18

So I already talked a little bit about grooming, but I just want to sort of highlight something that abusers are very patient will take as much time that they need to erode the boundaries and defenses of someone they’re targeting. This could be as much as a year or more, in some cases. Right? Perpetrators identify some core needs, like belonging, validation and importance and connection, right? They test and blur boundaries until they can take from their targeted person at will. The end goal is control, and I have seen this in some cases, when they struggle to maintain control and sexual access, then they begin to. Bully, physically intimidate and verbally abuse the person they’ve targeted to ensure they remain in control. Something I just want to mention briefly is something called intermittent reinforcement, where you get a delivery of kind of a reward, these love bombs at irregular intervals, the person targeted never knows when they’re going to come, but it keeps a person engaged and working harder for longer to try to please that person, to remain in relationship with them. Narcissists use this kind of reward. So what happens is a victim is tolerating higher levels of stress and inappropriate behavior for longer, and this, in part, helps explain how to someone’s day. One thing I just want to mention briefly is something around betrayal trauma, but betrayal blindness. It’s when people who’ve been betrayed exhibit a lack of awareness, not knowing or forgetting, right? And in addition to survivors of adult clergy sexual abuse experiencing betrayal, blindness, bystanders exhibit this trait too. We don’t see it. We don’t see that this person’s abusive. So I’m going to give you some selected highlights from this national survey I did in 2015 I actually had 283, survivors respond, and almost 160 completed all the items. They’re mostly Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist, non denominational or independent United Methodist, Episcopal Assemblies of God and reformed. Those are kind of the top denominations. There are many, others, the average age at the time of abuse was the victim was 30. The abuser was 15 years older, so 45 the abuse lasts, on average, four years. This is not a one time thing. It can be, but in the longest in my sample was 17 years of abuse and people, how can someone stay for once? Someone once that perpetrator has sexual access, they remain in control. And I wish I could really sit and explain that in depth right here, but, but the the nature of coercive control and how people get sort of pinned in a corner is unbelievable. I’m going to give you some stats. 100% of the respondents in this survey had PTSD symptoms. 39% screened positive for actual PTSD. That’s higher than Iraqi veterans and Afghanistan wars, both of those when you have PTSD levels in the 20% so after seven years post abuse, the scores on this PTSD measure were still in the clinically significant range, suggesting that this damage is profound and long lasting. Here’s just a few things that I want you to hear. 50% of those with PTSD reported only being in a congregation, right? Does that make sense? So if you had PTSD, only half of those folks are still a part of a church. Those without PTSD, two out of three of those were part of a church. So you see that in the aftermath of adult clergy sexual abuse, congregations are no longer safe. They’re not places that people want to go. It’s not a place that feels okay when people had PTSD. 95% said my friendships were impacted. 91% said life satisfaction was impacted fun and leisure. 88% my overall functioning. 86% said that impacted my ability to household duties. 83% and 81% said their physical health was impacted. So we’re seeing friendships and life and how I live, right? This is this is tragic. Most survivors with PTSD reported problems of over or under eating. Nine out of 10, misusing substances, almost half engaging in compulsive behaviors, sexual behaviors, skin picking, hair pulling, 60% All right, I’m going to show you a few things in the last five minutes just hit. It hit a few things about there’s a slide. So when the abuse became known, I was blamed for the abuse. I want you to basically, I had 15 to 35% basically agree and strongly agree with this. These are literal, actual results from the survivors experiences. So I felt supported by someone in my congregation after I made it known, right? It’s mixed. Look at the disagree, strongly disagree and disagree, right? Some people felt supported, but 25 almost 30% like, Nope, it’s. Way I’ve been treated by my church after the abuse was made known as worse than the abuse. Look at that. Look at how many people strongly agreed and agreed. 30, almost 20, almost half my church supported me after the abuse occurred. This one’s tragic. Look at that. This is not where we need to be, and I’m going to do a, you know, a survey this year and find out, are we still in the same place I was blamed for the abuse. You can see the bar graph there on the agree and strongly agree, paying attention there, and noticing that I am healing or getting better. This is a good news, right? Look at this. Survivors are resilient. That’s something I’m learning in my research, survivors are resilient. They are going to get better, and they are going to be transformers in whatever space they occupy. I am stronger after the abuse. Amen. Look at this. They’re agreeing and strongly agree with this. Unfortunately, look at this. When my church had a policy in place to help support me, Nope, we’re not there. We don’t think this exists. Why would we have a policy? When I reported the abuse, I was believed. What a mixed bag there, right? All you see a lot of people, over 40% strongly disagreeing, and the church was helpful when I reported the abuse. No, not, really, not for most, the denomination or church thoroughly investigated it. No, no. So in the last couple minutes, if we’re going to help and support people, we’ve got to believe them, believe them. I believe you. We frame this as an abuse of power, role and position. We call it abuse. It is not an affair and it’s not a one time event, right? We need to acknowledge the multiple layers of trauma,

David Pooler  27:13

because when she tells the truth, she’s not believed by relevant others. She’s blamed by the perpetrator and by standards, and then many congregations marginalize and exclude people in what we call institutional betrayal. All right, is this a crime? Yeah, it actually is. Do you all realize this? In 14 states, it’s a crime. This is a crime. It’s illegal for a pastor to be sexual with someone with whom they have a fiduciary relationship. Most states, unfortunately require sort of this in the context of counseling, which not all you know pastors are abusing in that context. But some states, like Texas have a really great statute where it’s just clarifying that it can happen in any context. The pastor is in his role. And the fact is, in my research, 40% of the time sexual abuse is occurring outside of a formal counseling relationship, but 60% of the time the pastor is calling it. We’re going to do counseling together. We’re going to work together, but it could be spiritual advisement, discipleship or friendship. So folks, we are talking about sexual violence and we are talking about healing, and sexual violence is always about domination and oppression, making people objects, and the traumatic disorders like PTSD, they’re always the afflictions of the powerless. Justice is the final stage of healing, and this is where we have so much work to do. But for justice to happen, we have to have leaders and institutions that can say, Yes, this happened. It’s real. The injuries are profound and deep, and we’re gonna, I’m getting so emotional here. We’re gonna make it right. We’re gonna step in and make it right. We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna make it better. We’re gonna help you heal. That’s where we’re missing it, folks, and that’s where we’re just calling in people to do this hard work. We’ve got to face it, we’ve got to see it, we’ve got to own it. We’ve got to acknowledge it. And we need creativity, innovation, courage and authenticity. And guess what? This conference is inviting all of that on the deepest level. Well, I hope that I have shared something that’s landed, that you have a better sense of adult clergy sexual abuse. For those who don’t, who haven’t fully understood it, and for those of you who have survived it, my hat is off to you. I bless you. I love you. I care for you. I pray for your healing and restoration. Conversation that as long as it takes, you’ll continue to get better, and that you will share your healing and how it’s happening with others. Thank you so much.

Julie Roys  30:16

Thanks so much for listening to this session of restore 25 as you know, a lot of conferences charge for resources like these, but we’ve decided to make them available for free, because we don’t want money to stand in the way of ministry. That said, these do cost money to produce, and we also feel God calling us to expand our ministry and our production of resources. So if you believe in what we’re doing here at the Roys report, would you please consider donating to support us? To do that, just go to Julie Roy spelled, R, o, y, s.com/donate, that’s Julie roys.com/donate again. Thanks so much for listening. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.