On Sunday, November 12, 2017, it came to my attention that there have been relationships between Jonathan Ryan, the co-founder of the Sick Pilgrim blog, and various women in the Sick Pilgrim online community\u2013a community that had become, over the last year, a de facto support group for those recovering from spiritual abuse, in addition to a place for artists and writers to come together to discuss what inspires us and\/or troubles us about the Catholic Church. (This Facebook community is a private group\u2013one must request to join\u2013but it\u2019s not a secret. We have advertised it on the blog and on Facebook multiple times and invited anyone interested to send us a request to join.)<\/p>\n
It quickly became apparent, upon investigation of these claims, that the relationships Jonathan had formed with several women he met through the blog and in the community had in fact been inappropriate, predatory and exploitative.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday, November 14, the Sick Pilgrim administrative staff had collected enough testimony and evidence to send Jonathan a formal letter notifying him that he had been removed from the online community and should no longer publish any work or give interviews or public lectures under the name Sick Pilgrim.<\/p>\n
We have always been committed to making our community members safe and have removed people from the online group for less. We have had a zero tolerance policy for online harassment that has often been controversial, but I\u2019ve always wanted to err on the side of protection of the vulnerable. I consult with the admin team, but I take full responsibility for the decisions to remove members from the group.<\/p>\n
Our decision to dismiss Jonathan Ryan Weyer from both the group and the blog\u2013and to publicly denounce his actions\u2013was based on the following:<\/p>\n
\u2013His position in the group was not that of a peer. It was that of a co-founder, former Presbyterian pastor, and current Catholic ministry leader, a holder of public trust. For this reason, he had a responsibility to the members of this group to carry himself with self-control and safety. He did neither.<\/p>\n
\u2013He private messaged women in the group with romantic intent, making plans or suggesting to meet with more than one of them in person. At least one has reported that when he met her in person, they had sexual intercourse.
\nThis woman was (1) a good deal younger than him; (2) struggling openly (as narrated in the group) with mental illness; (3) in extremely stressful life, financial, and relational transition, and thus (4) quite obviously vulnerable. The power and position dynamics were simply inexcusable and unconscionable. We have evidence that he indicated to this younger woman that she could expect marriage\u2013going so far as to pick out the chapel where they were to be wed\u2013and that intercourse was part of that trajectory. Even if, at the time, this intercourse was consensual, the woman in question gave her consent under false pretenses. Again, the power and trust differential was severely abused.<\/p>\n
\u2013We have received, from multiple people, written statements and screenshots from conversational threads in which Jonathan narrated conflicting accounts of a disturbing predatory experience that I, personally, had with him in August of 2017. None of these accounts corresponds with reality, which included him groping me after I\u2019d had too much to drink. I also received evidence that he was maligning my character and calling into question everything from my writing to my parenting and even my adherence to church teaching, presumably to undermine my credibility in advance of me telling my story.<\/p>\n
This is why I believe the women who have come forward. I\u2019m one of them.<\/p>\n
Sick Pilgrim\u2013the blog and the group\u2013in addition to being a place for artists and \u201cweirdos\u201d to talk church, was conceived and designed as \u201ca field hospital for the spiritually wounded.\u201d Jonathan betrayed our trust and manipulated people who were attracted to our writing and the online group for this very reason. It is for their protection that he was swiftly and decisively removed.<\/p>\n
Jonathan also wrote a number of posts condemning the narcissism and predatory behavior of abusive men\u2013after assaulting me\u2013which now strike us, at best, as disingenuous and at worst, as part of a pattern of grooming women to trust him as an ally.<\/p>\n
The Sick Pilgrim community unequivocally repudiates Jonathan\u2019s actions. We are an informal group of artists, writers, and theology buffs\u2013not a legal entity, not a lay apostolate of the Catholic Church, not an intentional community. But it is important\u2013essential\u2013that we protect the marginalized and vulnerable among us, who have come to us for spiritual companionship and support. I will do everything in my power to do so.<\/p>\n
To that end, I have also contacted Loyola Press, publisher of the book Strange Journey, which Jonathan and I co-authored about our experiences of healing and wonder in the Catholic Church. As a result, Loyola Press has terminated our contract. All remaining copies of the book will be destroyed. I stand by that decision and applaud Loyola for their swift response.<\/p>\n
To say that I am deeply sorry for the wounds this has caused those who trusted us as friends, companions, colleagues, spiritual leaders and Catholic writers is the understatement of my lifetime. I began Sick Pilgrim in part as a project for my own healing from spiritual and emotional abuse, and these experiences and revelations have broken my heart all over again.<\/p>\n
If you have questions or concerns or further information regarding this story, you may contact the administrative team of Sick Pilgrim at admin@sickpilgrim.com.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I was also contacted by Donna Provencher, who wants me to post the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cDelete the adjectives,\u201d Atticus says to Scout about Jem\u2019s book report, \u201cand you\u2019ll have the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n
I have gone back and forth for the past few days about whether to say anything publicly. I am well aware that I, as well as a few other women in this group, are at the center of a lot of adjectives right now, some of them less than kind, flying furiously back and forth via private messages.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t surprise me: As a general rule, women who don\u2019t speak up about their own mistreatment are complicit cowards, and women who do speak up are vindictive whores. It\u2019s one of life\u2019s great paradoxes \u2014 much like how every man knows hundreds of women who have been sexually used, abused, exploited, manipulated, harassed, or assaulted, but none of them seems to know anyone who has done it.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t going to speak of this in a public forum, and I have not said a word for months, but someone else fired shots on Fort Sumter, and Sick Pilgrim reached out to ME to ask for an account of my recent experience \u2013 I did not volunteer the information, nor did I approach the admins. The crime for which I\u2019m being crucified is being asked some questions and answering them honestly.<\/p>\n
I will not be a pawn in some sort of Catholic Civil War, nor will I allow my wounds to become a bully pulpit for anyone else\u2019s persecution complex, nor will I stand by silently and watch someone who has wronged me and a number of other people control a narrative by altering facts and disseminating false information.<\/p>\n
I am not known for going gently into that good night where basic human dignity is at stake, and I don\u2019t intend to start now.<\/p>\n
There are two things I want to make perfectly clear:<\/p>\n
First, I am a proud feminist, but I am not a person who is often \u2013 or ever \u2013 accused of being histrionic, hating men, or perceiving misogyny where none exists. I am friendly with almost all my exes, even some pretty awful ones, and you\u2019d be hard-put to find one who wouldn\u2019t come jumpstart my car in the middle of the night in a bad part of town. I don\u2019t tend to operate from a place of kneejerk ideology, I\u2019m not particularly sensitive to slights, and I think if you ask anyone reasonably well acquainted with me, they will say I am not prone to see bad behavior in men on the monstrously sophistical grounds of penis ownership. I am, however, inclined to call out bad behavior in my fellow human beings when I see it, and to protect other human beings from further injury where I can. As Dorothy Sayers once said about \u201ca woman\u2019s point of view\u201d: \u201cThe line I always want to take is that there is the \u2018point of view\u2019 of the reasonably enlightened human brain, and that is the aspect of the matter which I am best fitted to uphold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second, I am a journalist. It\u2019s my job to say who, what, when, where, why and how (although in this case, I\u2019m still working out the last two.) I\u2019m not here to embellish for you, to impress you, to win your trust, or to tell you what to believe. I\u2019m here to tell you what happened.<\/p>\n
As many of you know, Sick Pilgrim was instrumental in my reversion back to the Church in mid-September. In particular, I was (as many of you know) extremely close to one person in a position of quasi-pastoral authority in this group: Jonathan Weyer. The first time we spoke, we spoke for 70 hours \u2013 straight.<\/p>\n
I rapidly fell in love with his intellect and his seeming concern for me, my son, my well-being, and my spiritual welfare. He assured me he felt the same way. He pulled over in his car, weeping, the day he found out my patron saint was St. Kateri Tekakwitha, telling me that she had sent me to him. He assured me I was his soulmate, the One, that there are no accidents in this life, that the Holy Spirit had sent me to be his wife. That he loved me as no other had or would ever love me, that he promised he was going to marry me and stay with me forever. We talked nearly constantly; he talked about marrying me next July 14th, St. Kateri\u2019s feast day. He picked out baby names with me. He promised me I would be the last person he ever slept with. He promised to take care of my son and be his father.<\/p>\n
By the first few days of October, I was convinced to break up with my boyfriend to be with this guy, and he asked me to be in a relationship with him that same day.<\/p>\n
There were red flags, of course: he badgered me to keep our relationship a secret, citing his concerns for privacy, his desire to not have Sick Pilgrim \u201cup in his business\u201d or asking questions about his love life, and not alienating his ex-wife and kids. I complied.<\/p>\n
In hindsight, I was sold a compelling bill of goods, but I bought it.<\/p>\n
I flew to visit him in mid-October, after about a month of this madness. He introduced me to his parents. I went to confession for the first time in seven years.<\/p>\n
Then he had sex with me. A couple times.<\/p>\n
Let me be clear: I\u2019m no saint under the best of circumstances. But this is a man who also works for the Church, is 11 years my senior, is in a position of self-proclaimed quasi-pastoral authority, has been instrumental in my conversion, knew I was struggling with a number of things, and really shouldn\u2019t be in the business of using people in vulnerable positions. \u201cWhenever a man lies with a woman,\u201d writes Lewis in Screwtape, \u201cwhether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trust me. I\u2019ll be enduring this one for a long time.<\/p>\n
But since there\u2019s a lot of other misinformation being bruited about: I have not, nor have I ever claimed \u2013 NOR WOULD I EVER CLAIM \u2013 that I had sex with this man against my will in that moment. Rightly or wrongly, I had sex with someone whom I loved very much, who had promised me repeatedly that we would get married and it was just a matter of working out the details. But I had sex with him under horrifically false pretenses of him having assured me of God\u2019s intent for him to marry me, and I had many times said that I would not do so otherwise. And that is, definitionally, sexual coercion; telling other people lies in order to get laid \u2013 be it about your HIV status, your cousinship with Brad Pitt, or the Holy Spirit convicting you \u2013 is to obtain consent fraudulently.<\/p>\n
Moreover, it may not be illegal to target vulnerable women whose spiritual lives have been exposed to you, who are openly struggling with depression and anxiety, who have told you all their deepest, darkest secrets \u2014 to tell them you want to marry them, keep them a dirty little secret, sleep with them, dump them, and start dating your next soulmate before the milk in your refrigerator expires \u2013 but it\u2019s certainly a grievous breach of ethics for even an ordinary person, let alone one literally in the business of souls and bound to uphold integrity and Catholic ethics.<\/p>\n
And dump me he did \u2013 nearly as soon as my plane touched wheels down back in Texas, the day after sleeping with me \u2014 citing initially his lack of desire to have more kids, a story that rapidly changed, over and over again, throughout the following weeks.<\/p>\n
It would seem, through timelines others have constructed, that he sent an email to another girl in Sick Pilgrim telling her he loved her and that God had destined them to be together for all time on Sept. 4th; that he was telling me the very same thing by Sept. 23rd; and then dumped me and started dating a close friend of his within a week or so of breaking up with me Oct. 23. (A friend whom, by the way, he categorically claimed he had no interest in and would never date or marry because she was not Catholic; I don\u2019t know whether or not his relationship with her overlapped with his relationship with me, nor do I care.)<\/p>\n
I left this group [a secret Facebook group where the message was originally placed] because the situation was making me mentally sick and I was having bouts of emotional whiplash and cognitive dissonance because of this behavior. He told the group I had \u201cproblems\u201d and implied I stormed off in high dudgeon for no reason.<\/p>\n
After the book launch party, he yelled at me for talking to \u201chis\u201d friends \u2013 because I had asked Jessica and John how the book launch party went \u2013 and accused me of spying on him, sending me further into my isolation and feelings that I couldn\u2019t have any friends in this group (a group which, to reiterate, was really instrumental to me finding faith again).<\/p>\n
He continued to gaslight me for weeks, baiting me with random messages about how important this girl was to him while simultaneously claiming that there was nothing going on between the two of them \u2014 until he recently publicly confirmed their relationship in an odd display for someone who claimed a month ago that his privacy, and keeping his love life out of SP\u2019s scrutiny, were of the utmost importance.<\/p>\n
For the record, after Sick Pilgrim admins came six days ago to ME asking for my account of what happened, it was confirmed to me that there are at least THREE other girls in this group besides me with accounts of sexual harassment, abuse, or romantic exploitation involving this person \u2013 including one story far worse than mine. At least three of the four girls, including me, were women with remarkably similar backstories: single mothers in vulnerable positions whose previous relationship was with a narcissist abuser.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not here to speak to motivations, but Occam\u2019s razor would suggest that the most obvious solution is the correct one, and it takes only three data points to form a valid logical induction.<\/p>\n
Regardless, these other stories are not my stories to tell. If they want to tell their stories, I support them with all my heart, and I believe them. I would encourage you to do the same, and to think long and hard before discounting what they have to say. And for the record, since varying versions of events are being disseminated, this person openly admitted to the admin group all his behavior toward me and that \u201che is not proud of it.\u201d So his claims that his actions have been mischaracterized belie actual demonstrable evidence.<\/p>\n
And because I know someone out there probably doesn\u2019t believe me, and thinks I\u2019m just a vindictive bitch \u2014 and trust me, I steeled myself for this eventuality when I set out to write this down \u2014 I have only one thing to say to him:<\/p>\n
Jonathan, you sent me a rather jarring text this week saying, \u201cI hope you\u2019re happy. You got your revenge. Congrats.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I cried.<\/p>\n
Because, to recap: I was put through hell and back again by you, who were instrumental in my conversion, claimed to love me, and promised to marry me; seemingly exploited for sex when I was vulnerable by the person I trusted and loved most in the world; dumped 24 hours later; replaced by someone else \u2014 and lied to about it; and asked deeply uncomfortable questions by SP admins, which I answered as fairly and honestly as I could. Who exactly is the victim here?<\/p>\n
Justice is not revenge, and it is unacceptable to troll for sympathy when there are multiple women in this group who have been wounded by exploitative treatment by someone with self-proclaimed pastoral authority, and are owed apologies and amends. Don\u2019t be the thief who is not sorry he stole but is terribly, terribly sorry he is going to jail.<\/p>\n
The Holy Spirit doesn\u2019t appreciate you mistreating women \u2014 or any other souls in your care, for that matter \u2013 in His name. God will not endure being mocked, and if you can\u2019t distinguish between the voice of God and your own libido, then you don\u2019t belong working in Catholic ministry amongst broken people. \u201cIt is a serious thing \u2026 to remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations \u2014 these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit \u2014 immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.\u201d (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)<\/p>\n
If any of you have ever asked yourselves how the Harvey Weinsteins of the world go so long undetected: Men get away with patterns of abusive behavior and mistreatment of women for decades because victims are told to shut up and sit down. A lady never gets abused and tells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nIf you see the emperor has no clothes, closing your eyes won\u2019t make him any less naked. You don\u2019t have to believe me. I expect to be disbelieved by a lot of you. I love you anyway. And I refuse to be bullied into silence. \u201cYou own everything that happened to you,\u201d Anne Lamott once wrote. \u201cTell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.\u201d #metoo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 The following message was written by my friend Jessica Mesman Griffith, and I share it with her permission: This is my official statement. You should hear it from me. You\u2019ve become like family to me. I can only say I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t speak out sooner as maybe it would have spared others some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":3002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865,888],"tags":[61,4272,4271,3597,4273],"class_list":["post-3484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuse","category-elsewhere-on-patheos","tag-abuse","tag-predator","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-sick-pilgrim","tag-survivor"],"yoast_head":"\n
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She came to Steubenville to earn a Master's degree in philosophy and Catholic bioethics from Franciscan University and had finished most of her course work before she suffered a chronic illness that derailed her university career. Since then, she's been learning from the school of hard knocks. Her essays on politics, faith, religious trauma, and life in Northern Appalachia, have been published in the Catholic Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Convivium Journal, and the Feinschwarz theology blog. She has delivered lectures on the Uncanny in the field of aesthetics at the Power of Beauty Conference at Franciscan University, and the Terra Incognita Literary Gathering. Mary is the author of Stumbling into Grace: How We meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy, published by Ave Maria Press, which was awarded second place in Catholic Social Teaching from the Catholic Media Awards. 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