Vatican to form study group to classify crime of ‘spiritual abuse’

ROME – Facing a swath of scandals involving founders and other charismatic individuals who have committed abuse under the guise of false spiritual and mystical experiences, the Vatican is establishing a study group to more clearly define the crime in church law.

A communique signed Nov. 22 by Cardinal Argentinian Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), and approved by Pope Francis, addressed a longstanding dispute among canonists on the concept of “false mysticism.”

Traditionally, “false mysticism” has been considered a crime against the faith, under the competency of the DDF, but without a clearly defined legal standard.

Article 10 of the 1995 edition of the DDF’s Regulation, signed by then-prefect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, states that the disciplinary section within the DDF “deals with crimes against the faith, as well as the most serious crimes, in the judgement of the superior authority, committed against morality and in the celebration of the sacraments.”

The dicastery, it says, is responsible for a variety of problems and behaviors related to the discipline of the faith, such as “cases of pseudo-mysticism, of alleged apparitions, of visions and messages attributed to supernatural origins, of spiritism, magic and simony.”

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However, according to the DDF’s communique, published on the DDF’s website, the term “false mysticism” is dealt with in a specific context related “to spirituality and alleged supernatural phenomena,” and is now dealt with in the DDF’s doctrinal section.

In this context, Fernández said, the term “false mysticism” refers to “spiritual approaches that harm the harmony of the Catholic understanding of God and our relationship with the Lord. It is in this sense that the phrase appears in the Magisterium.”

As an example, the DDF quoted Pope Pius XII’s 1956 encyclical Haurietis Aquas, in which he rejects the Jansenist concept of God detached from Jesus’s incarnation as “false mysticism.”

“It is wrong, therefore, to assert that the contemplation of the physical Heart of Jesus prevents an approach to a close love of God and holds back the soul on the way to the attainment of the highest virtues,” Pius XII said, calling this a “false mystical doctrine.”

While some canonists also use the expression “false mysticism” in relation to abuse cases, there is no crime classified as “false mysticism” in the Code of Canon Law, Fernández said.

Despite the recent revision of the Vatican’s penal code, which includes broader provisions for laypeople and lay founders accused of abuse, there is still no classified crime for this kind of abuse, leaving what many canonical experts have described as a legal lacuna in church law.

Some have pointed to the case of Spanish Franciscan Father Francisco Javier Garrido Goitia, convicted last year by an ecclesial tribunal on two counts of “false mysticism and request for confession,” as a potential precedent.

However, other experts have argued that in the Garrido Goitia case, the charge of “false mysticism” was considered an aggravating circumstance, and not a crime in itself, and that had the charge been for false mysticism alone, it would not have been admitted as there is no classification for it in Canon Law.

While some canonists have pushed for the classification of a crime of “false mysticism” in relation to abuse cases, others have held the position that the term is too general given that it has been used in both doctrinal and disciplinary contexts and is thus confusing.

Fernández in his communique said the issue of false spiritual and mystical experiences in committing abuse is dealt with in the new “Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena” published in May, and in which the DDF states that “the use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”

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“This consideration allows the situation described here to be evaluated as an aggravating circumstance if it occurs together with delicts,” Fernández said.

He said it is possible to come up with a classification of these crimes under the heading of “spiritual abuse,” while avoiding the term “false mysticism,” which he said is an “overly broad and ambiguous” expression.

To this end, Fernández said he proposed that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts and the DDF form a working group, chaired by Legislative Texts, to conduct a joint analysis of this kind of classification and present concrete proposals.

He said the prefect of Legislative Texts, Archbishop Filippo Iannone, has accepted the proposal “and is proceeding to establish the planned Working Group, composed of members indicated by both dicasteries, to fulfill the task entrusted to it as soon as possible.”

The establishment of the working group comes as the list of individuals accused of acts of sexual abuse that incorporate elements of false mystical and spiritual experiences grows, including prominent cases such that of the founder of the Peru-based Sodalitium Christiane Vitae (SCV), Luis Fernando Figari, and Slovene Father Marko Rupnik, accused of abusing some 40 adult women.

It is precisely the legal lacuna surrounding abuses committed with the use of false spiritual or mystical experiences, some experts have said, that allow alleged abusers such Rupnik to avoid punishment.

Fernández in his communique did not offer a timeline for when the working group would be established or the length of its mandate.

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