How Can the Enneagram Shed Light on Sin and Spiritual Abuse to Bring Healing to the Catholic Church?
Date of Award
5-2025
Degree Type
Thesis - Open Access
First Advisor
Raymond F. Dlugos, O.S.A.
Abstract
When critically approached and combined with modern understanding of brain function asymmetry, the Enneagram can shed much-needed light on how humanity attempts to evade a unique and intimate relationship with God through forms of self-deception, personally and collectively, regarding sins and virtues. The more profound understanding of personal human nature, which results from awareness of this self-deception, can shed light on the paradoxical truths of Christianity and what the universal call to holiness means for the world. Without this understanding, Christianity is often reduced to an ideology unable to match the challenges and realities of our modern world. This narrow perspective — instead of bearing witness to the reality of dynamic wholeness found in God’s reconciling grace, which brings virtue, peace, joy, and healing — often leads Christians, at times unconsciously, to commit spiritual abuse, which deepens alienation and divisions. Drawing on the teachings of the Enneagram, the Catholic Church, and research on brain asymmetry, I invite critical reflection on the reasons and consequences of our avoidance of reality. Using the Enneagram, in accordance with the teachings of the Catholic Church on the nature of sin, I highlight ways we deceptively avoid recognizing personal and collective sin, and in doing so, avoid God’s Grace, reconciliation, and the universal call to holiness. Finally, I propose a method of teaching the Enneagram that compassionately reveals deception regarding sin through the Enneagram’s analogy and allegory regarding Passions and Fixations. Through awareness of our Fixated nature and sins, we can be more aware of how we unintentionally spiritually abuse others. Only through awareness can we confess, reconcile, and heal.
Recommended Citation
Burianek, Connie, "How Can the Enneagram Shed Light on Sin and Spiritual Abuse to Bring Healing to the Catholic Church?" (2025). Religious & Theological Studies Student Work. 12.
https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/rts_studentpub/12