A screenshot showing the beginning of my latest Matters Twomey post |
The Dawn Patrol
The blog of author/theologian/canonist/songwriter Dawn Eden Goldstein, JCL, SThD
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Find me on Substack
Monday, October 21, 2024
Matters Twomey matters to me—and I hope it does to you too!
A screenshot of the beginning of my latest Matters Twomey post |
Saturday, September 7, 2024
My Father Twomey biography is now fully "Kickstarted"!
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
The next two weeks will determine whether I can write my next book
In my Kickstarter video, I explain why I want to tell Father Twomey's story. Watch on Kickstarter. |
I am grateful to the fifty-eight backers thus far who have shown me that they agree that Father Twomey's story is worth telling. If you would like to see me continue my work as a biographer of Jesuits who are models for the priesthood and for pastoral engagement with the modern world, I hope you'll visit my Kickstarter, pray for its success, and support it if you are able. Thank you and God bless you.
Saturday, August 3, 2024
Preview my Kickstarter for my next book
Screenshot showing how my Kickstarter will look on launch day |
Friday, August 2, 2024
Why I Refused to Endorse Bob Schuchts’s Be Healed
I was glad to read Sister Josephine Garrett, C.S.F.N.’s recent observation to reporters at the Eucharistic Congress that it is against the Gospel to attribute people’s psychological wounds to their spiritual failures. Her words put me in mind of problems that concern me about the "inner healing" approach as promoted by Catholic therapist and author Bob Schuchts, founder of the John Paul II Healing Center. For that reason, I am sharing a email I sent eleven years ago to an editor at Ave Maria Press citing serious theological issues that I found in Catholic therapist Bob Schuchts’s Be Healed.
The editor to whom I addressed my concerns was my own editor, who had shepherded the publication of my book on healing from childhood sexual abuse, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. She had sent me an advance copy of Be Healed in the hope that I would endorse it. In my reply, below, I explained why I could not do so in good conscience.
At the time that I wrote the letter below, I had an ecclesiastical licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies and was completing my doctoral studies. I now hold a doctorate in sacred theology, specializing in systematic theology, from the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, a terminal degree that is licensed by the Holy See. In addition, I have a license in canon law from the Catholic University of America.
I recently read Schuchts’s 2022 retreat book Do You Want to Be Healed? and was disappointed to discover that the author continues to perpetuate the dangerous errors that I noted in my letter to his editor. For further reading, I recommend Chris Damian’s critique of Schuchts.
Here is the email I sent to Schuchts's editor on July 21, 2013:
Dear K_____,
I wish very much that I could give you a blurb for Dr. Schuchts' book, because I would like to support your work at Ave Maria Press in any way I can. Unfortunately, having read Be Healed, I am unable to endorse the book. Although parts of it are good, I find that major aspects of its message are contrary to Catholic teaching. Moreover, certain aspects of his message are extremely dangerous. Considering that he is targeting readers who are already vulnerable, Schuchts has the potential with this book to inflict profound psychological damage.
I am particularly distressed by Schuchts's repeated attribution of physical illness to personal sin. For example, he writes on page 57, "The primary root of our suffering and sickness is separation from God, resulting in the fragmentation of our bodies and souls, and thus manifesting in broken relationships with other people and nature."
On page 61, Schuchts favorably quotes the following passage from J. Brennan Mullaney's Authentic Love: “The avoidance, rejection, or deprivation of love is the source of all functional (physical, psychological, and spiritual), illness." And on page 128, in concluding the book, Schuchts writes, "Behind most of our physical and psychological ailments, are spiritual root issues."
Schuchts quotes Pope Benedict XVI and other popes selectively in an effort to reinforce his points, but he takes them out of context. When Benedict and others speak of Jesus' healing, they are speaking of the healing that begins in this life and is not completed until the general resurrection.
What's more, nowhere does John Paul II, Benedict, Francis, or any pope say that Jesus' redemption brings mankind back to the original rectitude of Eden, which is what Schuchts is implying on pages 57-58. Just the opposite! The Catechism is very clear that, while original sin is taken away by baptism, its physical effects will remain until the Last Day:
CCC 405 Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called "concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
Moreover, in Salvifici doloris 11, John Paul II strongly refutes the idea that most physical suffering is due to spiritual root issues: "While it is true that suffering has a meaning as punishment, when it is connected with a fault, it is not true that all suffering is a consequence of a fault and has the nature of a punishment. The figure of the just man Job is a special proof of this in the Old Testament. ...And if the Lord consents to test Job with suffering, he does it to demonstrate the latter's righteousness. The suffering has the nature of a test."
Related to Schuchts' attribution of physical suffering to personal sin is his attribution of physical injuries from childhood trauma to the demonic stronghold of unforgiveness. I have in mind the story he tells, beginning on page 69, of Ana, who, as a 6-year-old child, was injured in a car crash so that one of her legs was eight inches shorter than the other. He says that he urged Ana to release her unforgiveness towards the driver of the offending car (and, by extension, to be released from the demon that held her within such unforgiveness)--and her leg was immediately healed.
Please understand that I am not doubting the healing itself. I am willing to believe that God, for whatever reason, answered Ana's prayer and healed her. But Schuchts's conclusion—that Ana, at age six, was so angry at the driver that her leg refused to heal—is simply irresponsible.
Think of someone you know who retains physical, mental, and spiritual wounds from being harmed at a very young age. I have in mind my own readers, some of whom recall being abused as toddlers. They now suffer from flashbacks and other PTSD symptoms; some have physical illness. One reader told me that all four of her daughters, now adults, have endometriosis--because every one of them as a child was sexually abused by their grandfather. Three of them are infertile. Would it be helpful to tell these adult women that they are personally at fault for their inability to have children? Would that be a healing realization for them? Or would it put them at increased risk of depression, suicide, hatred of God, and hatred of the insensitive people in the Church who blame them for the effects of the evils they suffered?
On a personal note, a young woman came up to me after a talk to tell me that she suffered serious damage after being told by a priest who read Neal Lozano's Unbound (a book Schuchts recommends) that her PTSD from childhood abuse was caused by demonic strongholds. The priest prayed Lozano's "unbinding" prayers over her, which, far from healing her, actually made her worse than before. Prior to the "unbinding," she only suffered flashbacks. Afterwards, every time she felt a flashback, she feared that the demons were out to get her.
My other problems with Be Healed have mostly to do with Schuchts' misunderstandings of sacramental theology. Although he quotes Raniero Cantalamessa saying that "sacraments are not magic rites," he places such emphasis on miraculous physical healings through the Eucharist and Baptism that he obscures the true nature of those sacraments. Most disturbingly, he calls the communion rites of non-Catholic ecclesial communities "Holy Communion" and implies that Jesus is present in them in the same way he is in the Eucharist (page 95).
Schuchts also misunderstands the nature of the Sacrament of Matrimony, saying that his parents had the graces of a sacramental marriage until the marriage was "annulled" (page 96). In fact, if the marriage was declared null (not "annulled"), it was never a sacrament to begin with.
I am very sorry to disappoint you by being unable to support this book. While I respect his good intentions, Schuchts unfortunately has the potential with Be Healed to do a lot more harm than good.
Grace and peace,
Dawn
Friday, July 12, 2024
A video message on my upcoming Father Ed talk near the Eucharistic Congress
I recorded this rooftop video today to spread the word about the talk I'm giving on Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.'s Spiritual Sponsor in Indianapolis on Thursday, July 18, near the Eucharistic Congress. See more details and register at this link.
The free event is for anyone interested in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the role that a Jesuit priest played in encouraging A.A. co-founder Bill W. Coffee and cookies will be served. Please let your friends attending the Congress know the gathering, sponsored by iTHIRST and Ignatian Spirituality Project. Locals who are not attending the Congress are welcome too!
Also, if you're based in the Indianapolis area, see my Upcoming Talks page for information on the other talks I'll be giving there, one on Wednesday, July 17, at St. Louis in Batesville, and the other on Sunday, July 21, at St. Jude in Indianapolis. Thank you and God bless you!
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Come hear me speak about Father Ed during the Eucharistic Congress—and help spread the word!
The official responded that no such room had been designated. There were no plans for any programming at the Eucharistic Congress for people in recovery, and no space for them to meet.
I found it absolutely incredible that an event promoted by the U.S. bishops that is expected to draw eighty thousand Catholics from around the country failed to make any provision whatsoever for people in recovery. Studies show that about ten percent of Americans abuse alcohol. Many more suffer from drug addiction or have family members who abuse substances. If the Eucharist is about healing, then these people should be among the first whom the Eucharistic Congress seeks to reach, not an afterthought. Certainly under no circumstances should the Catholic Church ignore them.
So I decided to step out in faith and rent an event room, coffee and cookies included, at the nicest hotel I could find within walking distance of the Eucharistic Congress, on the evening of the congress's first full day. I wanted there to be an attractive and welcoming place where people in recovery, their families, and their friends could find fellowship for an hour and a half, and could enjoy hearing me share Father Ed's story.
To my joy, two outstanding Catholic-led apostolates to people in recovery, the Ignatian Spirituality Project and iTHIRST Initiative, stepped forward to co-sponsor the event. Through their generosity and that of other kind folks who stepped up, all my costs are now covered, thanks be to God.
Please, please, please spread the word. We can't wait for someone out there somewhere in the Church to do something to encourage people in recovery. We are the Church, and with the help of fellow members of the faithful such as those in the Ignatian Spirituality Project and iTHIRST Initiative, we can make a real difference in the lives of people with addictions and their families.