Fordham Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education 
Presents

“On Becoming a Moral Witness: Truth-Telling and Truth-Hearing in the Context of Care”

Being a morally authentic caregiver can be risky. Sometimes the systems in which we function—and even our own anxieties—can work to discourage truth-hearing and truth-telling in the interest of preserving comfort or power. Using Avishai Margalit’s notion of the “moral witness,” Cataldo will address the challenges of creating an ethic of care in the face of risk.

As a professor and practicing clinician, Cataldo’s research is situated at the intersection of psychoanalysis, faith, and spiritual experience, focusing on issues of trauma and trauma-informed care. Her recent work addresses the concept of moral injury and moral witnessing as essential elements of understanding the Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis.

“Impossible Neutrality: The Ethics of Taking Sides in Spiritual Care”

Ethical practitioners know that we must take special measures to protect and advocate for vulnerable persons, but institutional existence often makes this ideal difficult if not impossible. This session explores the ethics of spiritual caregivers taking sides and morally advocating for others in challenging institutional contexts.

Trained clinically as a hospice chaplain, pastoral counselor, and crisis counselor, Capretto uses both philosophical and practical theological methods to explore the role of empathy in spiritual care. His research has appeared in various scholarly anthologies, including his co-edited volume Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory (Fordham U Press, 2018).