After many years of repression of religiousness by psychoanalysts and of psychoanalysis by the religious (Küng, 1990), the dialogue between psychoanalysis and theology has been resurrected and is enjoying new life. Since Orphans lends itself to both modalities of interpretation, its analysis is intended to illustrate their occasional complementarity. The concept of projective identification illuminates the scapegoating process in which the self visits its own split-off emotional pain upon another, crucifying the other rather than acknowledging its own brokenness. An alternative to the sacrifice of the other is the creative self-sacrifice entailed in the working-through of childhood suffering. Such integration makes possible the empathic (as opposed to projective) identification of the self that is sacrificed with the self that is saved, thus transcending masochism in that the sacrifice of the self is at the same time an affirmation of its core values and ideals.