Latest Articles
Spirit Fire Broadcast Series on Abuse, Faith, and Pastoral Care
Learning about trauma-informed pastoral care for abuse survivors will continue - after a short break.
Read MoreCardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap.
Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., graciously agreed to be the inaugural guest for The Spirit Fire Global Broadcast Series on Abuse and Faith which launched two weeks ago. What he shared with us is wholly different from the usual interview and is directed at the heart of survivors, our families, and the Church as...
Read MoreWorldwide Wounded Healers
Spirit Fire has been invited to become a partner-member in the Tutela Minorum, and we have been featured this week on the hub website by way of introduction: survivors in dialogue. Our many years’ worth of free resources will now be available worldwide, including with an expanded distribution of The Healing Voices Magazine. This means...
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Spirit Fire Broadcast Series on Abuse, Faith, and Pastoral Care
Learning about trauma-informed pastoral care for abuse survivors will continue - after a short break.
Read MoreThe Global Context for Child Protection
Learn about digital Samaritans, who are advancing human rights across otherwise impervious boundaries like closed borders or treacherous mountain ranges....
Read MoreMental Health Articles
Community Recovery
Here’s one from an amazing fellow survivor who recently connected with Spirit Fire. It was impossible not to respond with an open mind to his description of the impact on his life of St. Dymphna, the patron of mental illness...
Read MoreFreedom and Accountability
Barry Pearman of Turning the Page, which is a group in New Zealand dedicated to “empowering your mental health” with “faith, hope, and love,” has had roles as a mental health support worker and a community chaplain pastoring people with...
Read MoreModels of Addiction Treatment
Why would survivors and their families care about the different ways addiction is viewed and treated? Most importantly: Many survivors have relied on alcohol or drugs to cope with pain. Understanding views – and biases – helps identify your best...
Read MoreRecovery Articles
Male Child Victims
Dave Pittman is the Director of Together We Heal and part of the Safeguarding Initiative Team at GRACE. Pittman teaches churches, schools, and families how to talk with their kids about sexual abuse, how to better identify predatory behavior, and...
Read MoreFallen Idols: Alice Miller & Me
The final article in The Healing Voices Series on Alice Miller: Icon & Ideas When idols fall, we expect to be shocked, but with Alice Miller there was no surprise. Her dominance in my recovery had eroded over time. Her...
Read MoreUnique & Unnoted
Men who have been victims of sexual abuse experience both the trauma and the aftermath in unique ways that remain little understood. But that is beginning to change. One in six men in the United States have been sexual abused...
Read MoreFamilies Articles
Bipolar at Home
BPHope is a hub of excellent, practical advice for flourishing through smart management of your diagnosed bipolar or borderline condition. Especially helpful for those you love is the section dedicated to caregivers. It includes articles from parents, children, siblings, spouses,...
Read MoreDomestic Violence
Why do you keep going back? Survivors of child abuse often find themselves in dangerous adult lives, including addictions, sexual acting out – and most often domestic violence. To heal we begin healing the “today.” To help us heal, sometimes...
Read MoreTalking to an Abused Child
What if a child has been abused? What if you suspect abuse? The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a world leader in finding and caring for minors who have been lost, possibly abused, or indeed abused or...
Read MoreFaith Articles
Spirit Fire Broadcast Series on Abuse, Faith, and Pastoral Care
Learning about trauma-informed pastoral care for abuse survivors will continue - after a short break.
Read MoreRosary for America
October 7th the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops offered a virtual rosary for all of America in this time of pandemic and suffering. For those of our readers who are close to the rosary, here is a link to...
Read MoreGrieving My Dog
Grief is on the mind and heart lately, with a fresh new intensity, as I let go of my dog Finnegan Quinn after his recent death. It occurs to me that grief is the nature of life in a fallen...
Read MoreArts & Letters
Dancing Spirit
The Alvin Ailey Dance Company put a full season online this year. The Dancing Spirit program offers homage to the Black American Gospel Hymn and its influence in dance and the arts. With a special focus on resilience in suffering,...
Read MoreLiminality
Christmas can intensify the strain and tears and defining disappointments in our relationships. Can this darker side of Christmas offer us a gift, too? There’s an important reflection here. The Christmas miracle itself is about restoring the fundamental, existential relationship...
Read MoreSpecial Delivery
Presenting a Healing Voices Special Delivery: Instead of a couple dozen Christmas cookies, here are a couple dozen insights into the darkness that often visits us midwinter, during the holiday season – and after. What makes night within us may...
Read MoreLeadership Articles
Investigations Update
For anyone wondering about the status of U.S. Bishops currently under investigation following Pope Francis’s May 7, 2019, motu proprio Vos estes lux mundi, here is the most current list I could find (as of the date of its publication)...
Read MoreSince McCarrick
A Reflection The McCarrick Report struck me as a blip in the news. Coverage was commendable, but strangely brief. A few news groups are using it as a starting point; that is a good sign. Yet, the first news of...
Read MoreNeeded: Clergy Speaking Wolf
This continues The Healing Voices Series on Alice Miller: Icon & Ideas Bishops are committed to meeting with survivors of abuse by clergy in accordance with The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, a document ratified by...
Read MoreHistory Articles
Community Recovery
Here’s one from an amazing fellow survivor who recently connected with Spirit Fire. It was impossible not to respond with an open mind to his description of the impact on his life of St. Dymphna, the patron of mental illness...
Read MoreAtoning for Historical Abuse
The Society of Jesus in Canada and the United States has a project that seeks to make amends for its history of reliance on slavery through 1865.
Read MoreAlice Miller & The 12 Steps
This continues The Healing Voices Series on Alice Miller: Icon & Ideas One of the most dynamic social trends which embraced the ideas found in The Drama of the Gifted Child and all other Alice Miller books was the surging...
Read MoreRound Table
ROUND TABLE Peace Circles: Voices, Stories, Peace
This Healing Voices ROUND TABLE offers four essays to create a powerful testimony for the peace created when circles of adult survivors of clergy abuse gather together. My one qualification for introducing these four points of view is that I...
Read MoreBishops' Mass of Prayer and Penance, A Round Table
On June 14, 2017, the United States Conference for Catholic Bishops opened its Plenary Assembly in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a Mass of Prayer and Penance related to praying, also, for Healing of Survivors of Clergy Abuse. The homily was preached...
Read MoreMarie Collins's Resignation, A Round Table
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION Question Around the Table: What’s Your Response to the Resignation of Marie Collins from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors? FYI: Marie Collins’s statement on resigning, as posted on Twitter, is here. Mike I was so...
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