By Christopher Longhurst.
A survivor of clerical child sexual abuse in the New Zealand Catholic Church recalled
being told by a Catholic priest that clergy simply had to “take it on the chin” in
response to abuse disclosures. I heard the same phrase from a Catholic priest
myself.
While such remarks should not be mistaken for official Church positions, nor
assumed representative of all clergy, their recurrence across separate conversations
is striking. The apparent expectation that clergy be commended for taking abuse
disclosures “on the chin” risks recasting accountability as an act of endurance
deserving sympathy, rather than a minimum obligation owed to those harmed.
The expression appears to frame the abuse primarily as a burden to be endured by
clergy and the institution, criticism to absorb, reputational damage to weather, public
anger to withstand, rather than first and foremost as a profound injustice suffered by
victims and survivors.
What troubles me most is not the idiom alone, but where the emotional emphasis
now seems to fall. The focus is not placed on listening to survivors, or confronting
institutional failures, or pursuing meaningful accountability, but upon enduring
scrutiny and surviving public criticism.
In this context, “taking it on the chin” ceases to sound like resilience and begins to
resemble a form of clerical defensiveness expressed through the language of
stoicism. There is an irony in portraying accountability as a wound borne with dignity
when, for many survivors, accountability has scarcely begun.
In my own case, after raising concerns about what I perceived to be a failure to
properly apply the principles for dealing with complaints of clerical sexual abuse, the
New Zealand Catholic bishops engaged legal counsel to threaten me and dismiss
my complaints. Experiences such as these make appeals to clerical endurance
difficult to reconcile with survivors’ encounters of ongoing institutional resistance.
The phrase itself is an old boxing idiom referring to receiving a blow to the jaw and
absorbing it without retaliation or collapse. In ordinary circumstances, such resilience
may be considered admirable and may even resonate with certain Christian themes
surrounding endurance in suffering. Yet an important distinction must be made.
In contexts of abuse and institutional harm, endurance cannot substitute for truth-
telling, repentance, justice, reform, or accountability. A morally adequate response
requires transparency, protection of the vulnerable, and a willingness to confront
institutional failures—especially clerical child sexual abuse and its coverup—
openly and transparently.
After all, the New Zealand Catholic bishops stated publicly as early as 2002: “We
give you an assurance of our commitment to confront this problem with openness
and transparency” (NZCBC, Pastoral Letter on Abuse, 25 June 2002). Such
assurances sit uneasily alongside survivors’ experiences of concealment, secrecy,
resistance, legal defensiveness, and the seemingly unfair dismissal of complaints.
That is why the recurrence of this phrase within discussions surrounding clerical
abuse deserves careful attention. The concern is not that a particular idiom was used
once in passing, but that such language may unintentionally reveal deeper
assumptions about how institutional failures are psychologically processed within
clerical culture.
If abuse disclosures, survivor testimony, independent inquiries, media reports, and
public outrage come to be experienced primarily as hardships clergy themselves
must “wear,” the danger is that the moral centre of the clerical abuse catastrophe
subtly shifts away from survivors and toward the institution managing the fallout.
In such a framework, the institutional church risks viewing itself chiefly as the
recipient of criticism rather than as an institution called to self-examination, structural
reform, and self-respect.
That does not mean every priest who uses such language intends defensiveness or
lacks compassion. Yet language matters precisely because it can reveal underlying
cultural instincts and priorities — often unconsciously.
A posture of passive endurance may appear humble on the surface. But it also risks
fostering inertia, emotional disengagement, or the avoidance of deeper institutional
accountability. Simply “taking it on the chin” is not itself justice, repentance,
transparency, or safeguarding reform. Nor is survivor-centred care.
Arguably, no institution needs leaders simply capable of absorbing criticism. They
need leaders willing to listen honestly, investigate independently, acknowledge
institutional failures openly, support meaningful safeguarding reform, and accept
accountability even when doing so is painful or reputationally damaging.
Real accountability requires more than endurance. It requires moral courage, self-
examination, and a willingness to place the dignity and experiences of victims and
survivors at the centre of institutional responses.
In sum, the concern is not a single idiom, nor proof of an official position. Rather,
repeated expressions such as “taking it on the chin” may offer insight into how
institutional suffering is framed and whether, in that framing, survivors remain at the
centre of an ethical response.
About the Author
Christopher is a New Zealand Catholic theologian and survivor advocate whose
writing examines theology, institutional culture, and accountability in responses to
abuse.
