"Bad Theology Hurts" t-shirt from Apologia Studios
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 on July 21, 2013, 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.
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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 her 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
