Hilary Jerome ScarsellaWelcome
I help communities build healthier ways of living together—grounded in consent, accountability, and repair.
Hi, I’m Hilary.
I’m a scholar, writer, educator, and advocate exploring what ethics, religion, gender, trauma, and social power have to do with the world we’re building together. Much of my work centers on sexual violence: how harm takes root in institutions and belief systems, how religious and cultural systems can distort—and how they can also be reimagined as sources of accountability, consent, and repair.
I work at the intersection of scholarship and lived experience. I create courses, workshops, and resources that equip leaders, survivors, institutions, and everyday community members with practical tools for prevention, response, and transformation. I’ve long advocated alongside survivors of abuse in religious contexts, and their realities shape the questions I ask and the frameworks I build.
You’ll also find me writing about grief, spirituality, politics, plants, children, and the texture of everyday life. I don’t see these as separate from my work—they are part of how I think about love, responsibility, and the kinds of communities we’re trying to form.
If that resonates, you’re welcome here. Subscribe to my newsletter to stay in conversation.
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Learn with Me
Resources
Read or download any of my educational resources. You’re welcome to use these for noncommercial purposes as long as you keep my name on them and give attribution.
Publications
Download any of my open access publications and find links to the rest. If you’d like to read a piece that is behind a paywall, send me a message. I can’t put these up on the website, but I’m free to share copies with individuals.
Make a Request
I’m always working on new material. If there is a publication, resource, or something else you’d find useful, let me know.
Highlights from my newsletter
10 Principles of Survivor-Centered Care
How To Respond When Someone Says They Were Abused
“This is the question I hear most: ‘Ok, but how should we respond when someone shares or reports an experience of sexual violence?’
‘What’s ethical? What’s not? What’s helpful? What do survivors actually need? Is it possible to act in solidarity with survivors while also doing right by those survivors say harmed them? What does that look like? Can you give me an itemized list of instructions? Please.’”
12 Principles of Survivor-Centered Policy & Praxis
How To Be A Community That Navigates Reports of Sexual Violence Well
“So, you care about sexual violence. You want to do right by survivors, and you want to impose meaningful accountability on perpetrators. You know these aren’t things court or carceral systems can be depended on to offer. And, you want to make sure your own community of belonging is prepared to do its part well, if and when someone comes forward to disclose that they’ve experienced sexual violence from one of your members. You need to write a policy. Or you need to update the one that has been sitting for 30 years in the filing cabinet down the hall. Where do you start? Right here!”
Nevertheless, She Persisted—And Was Very Tired
Comments On The Parable of The Persistent Widow.
“Being a white, middle-class widow today in the United States can’t be much like being a widow in Jesus’ time and place. I imagine I got the better end of that deal by a long shot. But when I read this text my visceral reaction was, “Jesus,” (literally) “let that woman rest.” The text’s description of her persistence landed in my widow bones as a curse, not a virtue.”
