Abstract

Moral injury signifies an enduring moral anguish experienced as betrayal, shame, confusion, futility, and distrust, entailing intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal dimensions. This essay proposes a taxonomy of moral injury informed by the ripple effects of harm caused by clergy sexual abuse and its concealment in the Catholic Church. These five categories distinguish between the moral distress endured by perpetrators and victims as well as bystanders and other implicated subjects, the moral fallout caused by a specific event in comparison to exposure to a toxic environment, and as a spectrum that spans from acute to diffuse symptoms of moral violation. This typology illuminates how moral injury impacts conscience, which means “to know together,” indicating that healing moral injury is both a personal and communal endeavor.