[maryz]

Speaking of recollection, do you remember Law's sermon or whatever in which he said "We are all wounded healers"? I thought that rather mawkish phrase must be his, but it seems not.

In Fr. Neuhaus' essay in the current issue of First Things, I find the following:

Perhaps no book on the priestly life and pastoral care has done more damage than the late Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer. In this view, priests become good pastors to the degree that they expose their own wounds to therapy, inviting others to similar disclosure. The teachings of the Church and centuries of spiritual and moral wisdom are judged by whether they inhibit or enhance the therapeutic norm. And so the therapeutic marches on from triumph to triumph. . . .

Given all that has now come to light, bishops should resist the proposal that the solution is in adding another layer of the therapeutic.

Maybe Law was only familiar with the title; I'm very afraid he might actually have read it, even with attention.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

The term 'wounded healer' is a psychological one and refers to an individual who has worked through their traumas to the point where they can take any bad experience they have been through and transmute it; ie, convert something bad into something that can benefit and be of service to others. While any individual can do this and help another, the term generally belongs to the realm of psychology and not religion, therefore it would be generally inappropriate for use in religious circles.