The first time Judas’s kiss was heard was in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, its echo is repeated whenever the trust of an unsuspecting soul is betrayed. Betrayal, especially when it wears the mask of faith, tears apart the moral fabric of those who are wounded by it.
I was 10 or 11 when he stopped me in the street and asked if I knew where he could find a public toilet. “I don’t know, I’m sorry,” I replied. He was a short old man with a gentle voice. A harmless grandfather. “But I need to go right now,” he insisted, having started walking alongside me on my way to school. “You see that restaurant on Litovoi Street? Try there,” I continued. “It’s far away,” he replied. “I’ll go here, in the alley. Will you stand guard so no one sees me?” I crossed to the other side of the street, leaving the man behind with his need. When I got home, I told my parents about what had happened as if it were a news item. I had sensed that something was strange about the situation—an adult asking a child for help—but I hadn’t realised how dangerous it was.
My parents scolded me for talking to the man, but even after being told off, I still didn’t understand what had happened to me. I had seen evil, but I hadn’t recognised it. Moreover, I thought that maybe it was my new birthday jacket that had made me look older, and that was why the man had dared to approach me. Children always find an explanation to shift someone else’s blame onto themselves.
I now have a child and I am filled with fear. I want to ensure the safety of my little girl, and this is non-negotiable and independent of any system, including the police. Above all else, every parent wants to protect their child. Even when they scold their child for an adult’s mistake, their intention, however clumsy, is the same: to protect their child. Abuse hits from the opposite direction at hundreds of miles per hour. Its effects, even the physical ones, always extend beyond what is visible.
Hidden wounds
Recent research on trauma resulting from the betrayal of trust shows that betrayal leaves its mark on the brain: abuse rewrites reflexes, disrupts reactions, and distorts perceptions. The wound inflicted by betrayal on the victim’s soul is like an abyss that swallows up their entire inner landscape. Betrayal undermines a person’s sense of security, contaminating them with a diffuse suspicion disguised as caution. It fractures relationships and clouds clarity of thought.
The effects become exponentially greater if the victim is silenced while the abuser continues their abuse unhindered. This is because the harm resulting from the abuse is compounded by the subsequent silence. Ignoring the issue only deepens the wound and denies the victim the right to protection.
Psychologists say that the symptoms of trauma are greatly affected by how the community talks about it. It is crucial for the victim to be able to make sense of what has happened, and research shows that healing largely depends on how the victim and those around them relate to the trauma.
A reversal of meanings
This is why a victim must first and foremost hear the truth in its clearest and most direct form: it is not your fault. This is because, in abuse, shame is almost always mixed with confusion. Often, victims are so deeply affected by their horrific experiences that their minds cannot process them properly. This is even more so if the victim is a child. They do not understand what happened to them, why they feel the way they do, or why the person they trusted behaved that way.
Sometimes, the victim may experience moral confusion and be unable to tell whether what happened was bad or wrong, particularly if the abuser was a respected person, someone they trusted, or a family member. “If he is good, how can he do something bad?”
At other times, the victim may experience conflicting feelings of attachment and fear, feeling both the need to get closer and the need to run away. This overlap can create a sense of guilt: “Why do I miss him if I hate him?”
The mind protects the victim by blurring painful memories. This mechanism can be so powerful that the victim may end up wondering if the painful incident really happened, doubting their own memory.
However, the most painful form of confusion is perhaps the victim’s feeling that maybe they did something to provoke it. Aggressors generally exploit the victim’s innocence or shame by building on the idea that the victim “gave their consent.” The victim, especially a child, often feels ashamed of their own physical reactions during the abuse, as if these were proof of consent. However, these reactions are merely a biological mechanism and are never evidence of consent.
Abuse committed in a religious setting produces an even more insidious form of spiritualised confusion. “If he is a man of God, maybe I am the one who is wrong.” This is a terrible reversal of meanings. This is why it is crucial to state the truth clearly: “You did nothing wrong. You were betrayed by someone you trusted in a place where you should have been safe.”
The place matters
When tragedy strikes within a community, the greatest blessing is for that community to be able to listen with an open heart. In such moments, we should not retreat into silence out of defensiveness, but rather embrace empathetic silence, the kind that listens and makes room for the other’s pain. It is not easy to listen when you realise that a place intended as a refuge has become a source of pain for someone. But it is precisely in such moments that the heart of the Church is revealed in its efforts to provide healing.
The Church must not falter when someone has the courage to share their story. On the contrary, through confession and truth, wounds can be healed. The term “Church” is not limited to the institution or the religious leaders. We are all the Church.
We all need to examine our own souls and ask ourselves whether we and our friendships are safe places for the wounded. Can they come to us knowing that they will be believed? Can they be sure that they will not be judged, corrected or forced into an artificial reconciliation? Can they trust us not to serve them a facile theology of the “everything happens for a reason” variety? How willing are we to give up the idea of an idyllic day of worship where everything is restful, and instead find rest through service?
In church or church-related contexts, when abuse is hidden under the guise of spiritual care, it touches something in us that should have remained sacred. When someone who constantly speaks the name of God takes advantage of a defenceless person, the devastation is both psychological and spiritual.
The words of the psalmist are terribly relevant: “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God, as we walked about among the worshipers”
(Psalm 55:12–14).
In such cases, it is not only trust in a person that collapses, but also the moral order of the world.
Anomie
Suddenly, what is considered good becomes relative, and meaning becomes extremely fragile. In sociological terms, this loss of reference points is called anomie.
The word “anomie” comes from the Greek for “lawless.” The sociologist Émile Durkheim used it to describe a society that has lost its moral bearings and coherence because the rules that hold society together have ceased to function. Although the term originated in sociology, it can also be interpreted more personally as a form of inner disorder and a loss of the meaning that gave order to life.
Trauma has the capacity to cause a personal breakdown. Reality hits you so brutally that the inner laws that gave meaning to the world collapse. The rules that once seemed certain—who is trustworthy, what is good, where protection lies—suddenly become unclear. In their place, a kind of moral chaos sets in.
The victim ends up questioning the very foundations of life: “If evil comes from someone close to me, can I still trust the concept of goodness?” On a deeper level, trauma creates a rift between a person and their system of beliefs: they no longer know what to believe in, how to love, or how to pray. Simple gestures such as a hug, a smile, or a promise can trigger an emotional storm that is completely unrelated to the intention behind the gesture. Once we reach this point, trust cannot survive unless it is rebuilt little by little from simple truths.
Fortunately, even the deepest disorder is not permanent. The loss of meaning is not irreversible, and healing gradually finds its way into the life of the wounded through healthy, loving relationships that restore balance. While restoring inner order does not necessarily mean returning to what was, the new balance can bring a depth of experience that is difficult to anticipate.
God is not an accomplice
One of the simple truths that can restore trust is that God is not complicit in evil. Abuse committed in the name of God is a betrayal of God. God knows betrayal in all its atomic depth and universal complexity.
The kiss of Judas remains one of the most disturbing moments in the Gospels. This is not only because the act is committed by someone close to the Saviour, but also because that gesture encapsulates every past and future betrayal against a God who has done nothing but love fully.
Christ was no less hurt by the betrayal of Judas just because He had foreseen it. On the contrary, it hurt Him more because it was a concrete and present reminder of the damage wrought by sin to the human condition: it made people tempted, willing, and determined to irrationally reject goodness, truth, and love, even though every fibre of their being needs these qualities like their bodies need oxygen.
And yet, the betrayal of Judas is not the end of the story, although even the disciples probably believed it was at the time of the crucifixion. How could they have anticipated the immensity of what Christ would achieve from the dark abyss into which He had descended? Even they, who had been so close to Christ that they knew the rhythm of His breathing in His sleep, could not conceive what God would do with the shards of their shattered hopes when faced with the trauma of His death. But this did not prevent God from accomplishing His plan to save humanity in this way, through an episode that was so difficult to understand and endure.
This is why anyone who has been betrayed, hurt, or exploited in the name of faith should know that they are not abandoned. If God could turn the Devil’s betrayal through the kiss of Judas into the salvation of the world, then he can heal our wounds too.
“You did it for me!”
Psalm 34 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.” At the first reading, these words seem to offer encouragement to the innocent who suffer. However, the next verse reveals an unexpected depth: “He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” The Gospels directly link this prophecy to Christ, the crucified One, whose body was not broken. Inspired by God, the psalmist is speaking not only of the man who has been tested, but also of God incarnate, who will bear the pain of those who are broken.
Through Christ, God unites Himself with those who suffer. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Christ takes the side of the wronged and takes on their wounds—their side, not just the truth’s. Therefore, whoever rises up against the wounded, even without knowing it, rises up against the One who has made room in His heart for their suffering.
