Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
May 22, 2002
Religious leaders get guidance on combating domestic violence
4,000 victims of domestic violence are killed every year, experts say
By Jennifer C. Vergara
LOS ANGELES (CNS) — If a Catholic priest had not told Isabel she had endured brutal beatings from her husband for too long and should consider leaving the marriage, she figures she'd either still be a victim of domestic violence or she'd be dead.
"I was brought up to believe that once you're married, you're in it for life," said Isabel, mother of three. Her husband, she said, "would beat me up `til he was tired," but the priest told her that, after eight years of beatings, "it was no longer possible to help the marriage."
At a workshop series called "Violence in the Family," leaders of various faith communities in Los Angeles are learning to better help victims, like Isabel, who turn to them in desperation.
The Interreligious Council of Southern California sponsored the series because "when women — or men, for that matter — are victims of domestic violence, they go to their pastor," explained Father Alexei Smith, council president. "But many pastors are ill-equipped. They don't know what to do with this. They haven't been trained."
The goal of the workshops, which began in late April, is to provide faith leaders and counselors with the proper diagnostic and counseling techniques and referral strategies, he said.
Knowledge about the issue is essential, said Tom Schulz, a legal advocate for the Good Shepherd Shelter for Battered Women with Children in Los Angeles, because there are still many instances when Church leaders told the women "it was their fault and they just need to live with it, that it was their cross to bear."
Isabel thought she deserved to be beaten by her husband, her high school sweetheart. She described him as the jealous type.
"He would pick me up and drop me off from school. Then he would call me at home just to make sure I was there," said Isabel. Being the submissive type, she said, she thought "that was love."
Everything seemed fine when they got married until Isabel had her first baby.
"He had no patience," she recalled, and he began yelling at everything. She added, "It went from the yelling to the throwing to the pushing to the slapping."
He also was an alcoholic and a drug addict and eventually lost his job, Isabel told Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper.
"By this time, he was really beating me up nearly every day," she said. "I had black eyes, bruises, a broken nose. He was not only hitting me with his fist but with objects. He hit me in the leg with a pipe."
According to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey, there are more than 3 million incidents of domestic violence each year — not counting beatings like Isabel's that were not reported to law enforcement authorities.
The Los Angeles Police Department estimates that a woman is beaten every 15 seconds. Every year, 4,000 victims of domestic violence are killed.
Sister Anne Kelley, a Sister of Good Shepherd who runs her order's shelter for battered women and their children, said the victims stay in the marriage for several reasons.
"They often go back," she said, "because their families say, `You made your bed, you need to lie on it.' Or that `the children need their father.' Or financially — they can't figure out how to support themselves. ... Or they may really love him and they don't understand that there's a cycle."
Religion is another reason why battered wives stay, she said.
Isabel endured the beatings for eight years until one day, she was able to leave the house and go to a nearby church.
"I went to confession," she said. "I didn't want to be shot or pushed down stairs or killed — and I was sure that would happen soon — and not have gone to confession."
That's when the priest "pretty much explained to me that my fear shouldn't be of going to hell because I was living in hell, and that because of the extreme violence I had been going through, it was no longer possible to help the marriage," she said.
The bigger eye-opener for her, though, was the priest telling her "I needed to help my children. Never did it cross my mind the mental and emotional abuse my children were going through," Isabel said.
That advice eventually gave Isabel the strength to leave her husband. Sister Kelley's shelter took in Isabel and her children for over a year. There, Isabel learned the necessary skills to be a good mother, provider and role model to her children. The kids, in turn, learned new family dynamics and "unlearned" the power and control ploys their father showed them.
Isabel, now divorced and living in a new home with her children, said things would be different if that priest had not said what he said.
"Either I would still be there or I'd be six feet under," she said.
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