The Paradoxical Power of Vulnerability—What It Reveals about Abuse and Cover-Up

Abstract

Researching the question of how the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), and by extension other institutional systems, respond or do not respond to the lived reality of abuse and its cover-up cannot be done without seeking to understand the underlying issue: What is the RCC responding (or not responding) to? One elucidating and perhaps surprising answer lies in the little and often misunderstood word vulnerability. Vulnerability, most probably counter-intuitively, has in fact the power to enhance violence or to reverse its destructive influence. This thought forms the basis for an exploration into what Professor Dr. Hildegund Keul has named the vulnerability and expenditure paradox. The logic in both of them seems understandable and straightforward. Yet, when genuinely understood, they are unsettling. They reveal an uncomfortable dilemma, a reality check and, ultimately, a choice as the paradox raises the rather earthly question: do we attempt to cheat death and therefore lose life, or do we opt for “creation through loss”? The first might, though linked to violence, lead to a feeling of security and invulnerability. The second exemplifies the passion of authentic suffering, humility and identity dependence. From a Christian perspective, it is the incarnation of love.