Let’s imagine that you are a good friend of another woman whose husband has been cheating on her with different women. Because you do not approve of adultery, and because you know that your friend is a loving wife and mother who does not deserve to be betrayed, you feel obligated to inform her of the double life her husband has been leading. When you speak with her about her husband’s infidelity, she becomes angry with you and tells you that she never wants to see or speak with you again. Essentially, she engages in what is known as “psychological denial.”
The woman’s denial of the harsh truth is a form of self-protection aimed at preventing an emotional breakdown. Fearing change, the woman feels that addressing the affairs could lead to a painful breakup, divorce, or upending family life. She is also worried and embarrassed about what others might think about her failed marriage. By engaging in psychological denial, she directs anger at her friend who brought up the truth instead of confronting her unfaithful husband.
After years of investigating and reporting clerical sexual abuse, I often feel like the woman who informed her friend of her husband’s infidelity. When I write about popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests whom I know to be credibly accused of sexual predation, homosexual misconduct, abuse cover-ups, and reprisals against whistleblowers, it is very discouraging when people engage in a form of “spiritual denial” by faulting me instead of the unfaithful clerics.
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