Sexual abuse by clergy appears to create unique trauma characteristics, where distinctions exist between this and other types of perpetrated sexual abuse. These distinctions are based upon the hypothesis that sexual abuse by clergy is different rather than worse. Such traumatic experiences, as well as clerical perpetrators using ‘God’ as a silencing strategy, has the potential to shatter survivor‘s religious beliefs in a variety of ways, creating significant theological, spiritual and existential conflict. A further uniqueness with sexual abuse by clergy is from a legalistic perspective, as the offence incorporates civil, criminal and canon law. The long-term consequences will be discussed in two ways, firstly in examining the limitations of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder framework, and secondly the ways in which Church establishments themselves have the potential to re-traumatise survivors. A survivor’s experience will be used to highlight these points, whilst demonstrating a potential reformulation of this traumatic experience.
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Farrell et al. (2000) studied this question.