“[S]ometimes my relationship with the Church feels like a strained marriage… I absolutely do not want a divorce; I want healing in the most precious relationship I have.”

Emily Ransom describes herself as “a country girl from North Carolina” who now teaches English literature on the faculty of Holy Cross College, a small Catholic liberal arts college in Notre Dame, Indiana. She comes from a southern evangelical background and entered the Catholic Church during graduate school. Ransom, 40, sings in the gospel choir of a local African American Catholic parish. 

Her professional research focuses on the English reformations, including early modern devotional poetry, Ignatian meditation, and the literature of persecuted English Catholics, and she is currently editing a major edition of the works of St. Robert Southwell, SJ. “Outside work I am also a published poet, a hobby artist, and a dabbler in music,” she says. “I just got a harp for my fortieth birthday!” She lives with several friends with whom she shares life and community and enjoys being able to walk to work when it is not raining.

Awake: Welcome, Emily! Thank you for being open to sharing your story with all of us. As we begin, what would you like to share about your abuse?

Emily Ransom: I was a (very experientially innocent) thirty-five years old, already a professor, and the priest was a dear friend and professional contact in another state, about fifteen years older. In this case, I do not think the friendship was initially intended on his part as grooming but I obviously don’t know for sure. He hosted me in the guest space of his religious community one weekend when I came in town for another event and offered me dinner after the long drive. He had already had quite a bit to drink before I arrived and continued to drink throughout the evening. At the restaurant things began to get weird, and then he followed me into the guest room afterwards where the sexual assault happened.

A couple points have been important to me over the past few years as I try to understand what happened. One of the most important was that according to the law (and I checked for that state), any physical contact of a sexual nature without active consent is assault, independently of anything else about his religious vows. Second, it has also been important for me to understand that an ingrained trauma reaction of freezing, which I learned that I apparently have, absolutely does not constitute consent. And third, because of my profound trust and respect for him as a priest, true consent between equals would have been impossible in the first place.

Q. Emily, I’m so sorry for all that happened to you. Thank you for sharing this and your insights about consent. Could you pinpoint what has been the most difficult about your journey as a survivor?

A. It has been incredibly challenging to find my own voice amid the flood of other voices that could potentially superimpose their own understanding on my personal story. My assault happened months after the #MeToo movement had gone viral and made the prevalence and inexcusability of adult sexual assault a prominent feature of public discourse, and also months before the revelations of the McCarrick abuse were in the news, also involving adults. Because of this timing, it often feels like telling my story puts me at risk of being pitted between contrasting political or social agendas that have a well-intended, pre-written narrative to impose upon it. Sometimes this comes from people who are resistant to calling my experience “abuse” or “assault” since I was an adult (“boundary violation” is often the term of choice). Sometimes it comes from people ostensibly trying to be sensitive to victim-survivors by urging particular punitive measures, interpreting my friend/abuser as a monster, or advising me to leave the Church.

Q. That makes sense; it must be hard to talk about this intensely personal, painful, complicated experience when people start assigning their own agendas to your story. Is there anyone who has been especially helpful in your healing and recovery process?

A. My sister, for sure, every step of the way.

Also important has been a Jesuit friend, whom I called immediately after that weekend as I was driving home. At the time I was so confused that I didn’t know if on the one hand I was making a big deal of nothing (because of that trust I had for my abuser) or if on the other hand it was my fault (again, because of that trust). I cannot imagine how differently my story might have gone if I had not been able to hear from him right away, as another priest, that what had happened was horrible and that it was absolutely not my fault. He crucially told me in that first conversation that he knew my healing would be a long journey and that I was welcome to keep reaching out to him in the process, however long that would be, and that offer proved to be a game-changer. Over the next months when I was discerning making a report to the superiors, he offered to drive with me if that would be helpful. Later when I was on the brink of suicide because of the superiors’ response, he was the one I knew I could call, and he saved my life.

Q. His response sounds like just what you needed at multiple points in this process. I’m so glad that you’ve had this remarkable support. Is there anything else that has been useful in helping you heal?

A. Being connected to the friends I can trust has been crucial for the social wound, and receiving regular therapy has been crucial for the psychological wound which has included PTSD. For the spiritual wound, Ignatian spirituality with its emphasis on both discernment of the spirits and discernment of God’s will has been a game-changer. It helped reconnect me to the Christ who suffers with me and considers me his precious daughter, along with helping to identify and refute the internal voices that threatened my awareness of that love. Furthermore, with the aid of a trained spiritual director, I was able to discern between many potentially good paths to responding to my abuse, and I ultimately found one that gave me the greatest hope for the power of the Gospel. I later wrote an article about my experience of personally confronting my abuser as a brother in Christ, and the memory of the experience continues to give me hope in the concrete redemption of the Gospel even after the particularities of the situation later went badly.

Q. Given these experiences, how do you describe your current relationship to the Catholic Church? 

A. Because of the response to my story from specific ecclesial authorities, sometimes my relationship with the Church feels like a strained marriage. Sometimes going to Mass can feel like being forced to go to bed with a spouse who has hurt me and refuses to talk about the wound but demands my presence in bed. In my relationship with the Church, I absolutely do not want a divorce; I want healing in the most precious relationship I have (though perhaps sleeping in the guest room might make sense for a while). I often wish there was a way to receive marriage counseling with the Church. In those times, I can even become angry with Christ for teaching us to pray that his kingdom come and his will be done “on earth as it is in heaven” when my attempts to work for the coming of that kingdom on earth seemed to be so badly thwarted by leaders in the very Church he gave me. In the meantime, it has been important to remember that my friends who have accompanied me, and even I myself, are also the Church every bit as much as any particular leader.

Q. Emily, thank you for sharing this powerful analogy, and for giving us the honor of hearing your story. I so appreciate the chance to learn from you! As we close, could you share what gives you hope as a survivor?

A. I have had opportunities to be part of some developing conversations about the potential wisdom that restorative justice approaches can offer the Church in finding healing from abuse. These conversations have included other victim-survivors, advocates, scholars, priests, lawyers, psychologists, and even bishops, seeking victim-centered approaches rooted in healing wounds and restoring right relationships. That is a larger topic for another time (one of my collaborators described it in this recent article), but having an opportunity to work for healing in the broader Church when my own individual story seemed to go so badly has been a tremendous source of hope. It reminds me of the Gospel’s promise that “death is swallowed in victory”; when my own suffering became worse, I have been able to work toward a greater victory large enough to encompass it.

—Interview by Erin O’Donnell

Note from Awake: We extend heartfelt thanks to Emily Ransom for sharing her story. We also want to acknowledge that every survivor’s path is different. We honor the journeys of all survivors and are committed to bringing you their stories. In addition to Emily’s story, we encourage you to read our previous Survivor Stories, including our last story, from Valentino “Val” Borrelli.

If you have experienced sexual abuse, you can receive support through the National Sexual Abuse Hotline, 800-656-4673, which operates 24 hours a day. In Milwaukee, you can contact one of the Aurora Healing Centers at 414-219-5555. If you seek support from the Catholic Church, you can find the contact information for your diocesan victim assistance coordinator here. Also, Awake is always open to listening to and learning from survivors. If you would like to connect with us, we invite you to email Sara at saralarson@awakemilwaukee.org.