Can a superior tell you whom you should associate with? Can he decide whom you are allowed to be friends with and whom you must keep at a distance? The question is often whispered in seminary corridors, monastery parlours and during recreation in religious houses. Those who ask it already fear the answer, because they have learnt that certain friendships are viewed with suspicion, discussed and censured. It is therefore worth turning to Dom Dysmas de Lassus, Prior of the Grande Chartreuse and Minister General of the Carthusian Order, one of the most authoritative and perceptive observers of the internal dynamics of monastic life. In Abuses in the Religious Life and the Path to Healing, de Lassus examines with great rigour the mechanisms through which religious authority can become distorted until it turns into domination, control and the subjugation of consciences.
De Lassus leaves no room for ambiguity: a superior has no right to dictate the friendships of those entrusted to his care. When he claims the power to choose, restrict or end those relationships, he is committing an abuse which the Prior of the Grande Chartreuse unequivocally associates with the dynamics of cult-like abuse.
