Washington D.C., Feb 19, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Domestic violence is a hidden epidemic that many clergy and laypersons are not properly trained to fight, says one priest who runs the country’s largest parish-based ministry to counter the problem.
“When you start talking about it, that’s when people will start coming forward,” Fr. Chuck Dahm, O.P., who directs domestic violence outreach for the Archdiocese of Chicago, told CNA about the problem of domestic abuse.
The Church’s hierarchy “has not been good in getting this into the training of clergy, deacons or priests,” he said, even though a “beautiful” pastoral letter on the topic by the U.S. bishops, “When I Call for Help,” exists.
“Most priests and bishops are unaware of it,” he said. “And it should be taught and discussed in the seminaries, and it’s not.”
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. According to the CDC, “intimate partner violence” can be physical, sexual, or even emotional, as with instances of stalking or “psychological aggression.”
27 percent of women in the U.S. have suffered intimate partner violence at some point, along with 12 percent of men, the CDC has reported.
There are many physical and psychological effects of domestic violence on victims – physical injuries and disabilities and bodily effects of stress, but also anxiety, depression, and trust issues. Children witnessing violence in the home may grow up with emotional problems like anger, or may even become abusers themselves when they are adults.
In his apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris laetitia, Pope Francis wrote of the problem of domestic abuse:
“Unacceptable customs still need to be eliminated. I think particularly of the shameful ill-treatment to which women are sometimes subjected, domestic violence and various forms of enslavement which, rather than a show of masculine power, are craven acts of cowardice. The verbal, physical, and sexual violence that women endure in some marriages contradicts the very nature of the conjugal union.”
He also insisted upon the need for parishes and priests to be ready to deal properly with these problems: “Good pastoral training is important ‘especially in light of particular emergency situations arising from cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse’,” he added, citing the final document from the 2015 Synod on the Family.
Catholics are responding to this dire need, organizing a prayer campaign for domestic abuse victims while trying to spread awareness of the problem and educate clergy on how to properly deal with instances of abuse.
A symposium on domestic abuse took place in July at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., hosted by the university’s School of Social Service.
A “toolkit” for fighting domestic abuse has been provided by the Catholics for Family Peace, Education, and Research Initiative, which includes prayers and directions for helping a victim of domestic abuse.
The group is asking everyone to pray at 3 p.m. daily for domestic abuse victims, and have called for a day of prayer on Oct. 28, the feast of St. Jude the Apostle, the patron saint of hopeless cases.
Fr. Chuck Dahm has created a parish-based ministry to combat domestic violence. A key part of his work is simply preaching about it, he says, because it is a widespread problem that hides in plain sight.
There is an “overwhelming lack of recognition that the problem is more frequent, more common than people think,” he told CNA. Many priests are completely unaware of cases of it, Fr. Chuck noted, although “there are people in their parishes who are suffering.”
“I have gone to 90 parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago,” he said. “And after I preach about it, people walk out of the church and they tell me ‘thank you for talking about this. This is long overdue. And my sister, my daughter is in it, or I grew up in it.’ And this is so much more common than anybody realizes.”
Priests must listen when victims tell them of their abuse they’ve suffered, he insisted.
“You always have to believe the victim,” he said. “Victims do not exaggerate. If anything, they minimalize. So they have to be believed and supported.”
In one case, he said, “a victim survivor” told him of how she went to her parish priest, who “was not receptive and said he couldn’t do anything to help her.”
“Well that’s tragic,” he said. “She went and told him about the abuse she was suffering. He didn’t know how to handle it.”
Another problem is when some priests tell an abuse victim to go to marriage counseling with her husband – which “is not appropriate,” Fr. Chuck noted. “She needs domestic violence counseling and he needs perpetrator counseling,” he said. “A lot of priests don’t know that.”
Fr. Chuck participated in the symposium on domestic abuse at Catholic University this past summer.
Since then he’s seen the fruits of the conference, spreading awareness of the problem.
“A significant number went home with the plans of doing something in their diocese or their respective organizations,” he said of conference participants.
The Archdiocese of Washington just held a workshop for priests to learn how to deal with incidents of domestic abuse and 31 priests attended, he said. Two representatives of Catholic Charities in Vermont are starting a workshop for priests there, and the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City held a workshop attended by several priests and a meeting for priests with Fr. Chuck.
“It’s hard to get the priests to come to any kind of event like this,” Fr. Chuck acknowledged.
Unfortunately, it’s been negative incidents that have driven the conversation about domestic abuse, he said. For instance, when surveillance videos surfaced of former NFL running back Ray Rice punching his fiancée, and then dragging her off an elevator while she was unconscious, the “subsequent outrage” after that and other incidents like it “helps create more awareness about the problem.”
Then “people feel a little bit more comfortable and required to speak out about this and do something about it,” Fr. Chuck explained. “The publicity about negative events or harmful events is quite helpful in raising awareness.”
“We’re really behind on this,” he said of the Church’s efforts to combat the problem, while noting at the same time that “we’re making progress.” There will be a Domestic Violence Awareness and Outreach Mass on Saturday Oct. 29 at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, celebrated by Cardinal-designate Blase Cupich.
“Many times violence in the streets begins at home,” Cardinal-designate Cupich stated on the issue. “Adults and children are traumatized and alienated from the love and support they need by the violence they witness. We must respond to this tragedy.”
This article originally ran on Oct. 24, 2016.
[…]
““As a founding principle of our country, we have always welcomed immigrant and refugee populations, and through the social services and good works of the Church, we have accompanied our brothers and sisters in integrating to daily American life,” Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington and chair of the US bishops’ Comittee on Migration, said Jan. 2.”
Someone needs to take a remedial US history class.
SOL,
Which part of US history did you think they need a remedial class on?
Who are most Americans originally if not immigrants?
I’d agree it’s not correct to say that we have always, at all times welcomed immigrants and refugees but we certainly have done that selectively. And Catholics have for the greater part been among the groups of immigrants not warmly welcomed.
We need immigration to counteract the current birth dearth but we don’t have to have open borders or risk our national security. There should be a reasonable and humane approach to immigration.
Has it occurred to you that mass immigration is a cause of the drop in birthrates? By driving up the cost of living (housing, heath care, taxes, etc.), while depressing wages, it makes family formation so much more difficult.
Tony,
Birthrates are plummeting globally with or without immigration. Even government incentives to have a replacement level birthrate have failed.
Hungary is offering tax incentives for families and hopefully they’ll have some success.
Mrscracker,
The founding American people were not immigrants but colonists/settlers. They didn’t enter into a pre-existing polity and receive citizenship or some other form of membership from another people. The whole “America is a land of immigrants” myth was created by leftist subversives even if used by 20th ce nationalists for their own purposes after the fact, more than 3 centuries after the first British colonists started settling this country. Many of the founding fathers after the revolution even explicitly wrote on the question of whether anyone non-British should be allowed to immigrate to the US.
This original Anglo-American (and Protestant Christian) heritage and identity is what the left is trying to erase and unfortunately too many Catholic bishops are assisting in this, even if the bishops seek to replace it with some vague “Catholic” identity.
This system is currently in a stage of collapse, and continued immigration will further destabilization and increase the likelihood of wide-scale violence, regardless of how necessary believers in infinite economic growth say immigrants are for that.
SOL,
Good morning!
My daddy’s side of the family has been here for 400 years. I went to the UK a few years ago and visited the parish church of a 17th century colonial ancestor. In his memorial he’s referred to as “Henry the Immigrant” because he migrated to the American Colonies.
🙂
You know, the longer your ancestors have lived in North America the more likely you are to find non Anglo Saxon ancestry or ancestors who came as convicts. The American colonies were a dumping ground for thousands of British convicts until the Revolutionary War. After that, the British had to turn to Australia and Tasmania to dump their unwanted.
Beyond chattel slavery, folks of African ancestry have been here for 400 plus years. Many were free people of color and many intermarried with white colonists.
And of course, our American Indians have their own perspectives on immigration.
History is complicated and the more you look at it, the more humble you feel. Most of us have very modest beginnings and sometimes, we find very surprising narratives along the way.
Your argument seems to be that, since we are all the descendants of immigrants (in the broadest sense of the word), there is no justification for this nation (or really, any nation) to have a restrictive immigration policy. Apparently, this Ellis Island sentimentalism must override all other political, social, cultural and economic considerations. Does a country have a right to try to maintain its ethnic and cultural balance by limiting who is allowed in?
More mindless, liberal rubbish from bishops who seem utterly incapable of, not to mention unwilling to, speak in anything other than left wing cliches. Will they ever declare solidarity with the American people?
Looked up the bishop in question.
Wikipedia: Mario Eduardo Dorsonville-Rodríguez (born October 31, 1960) is a Colombian-born bishop of the Catholic Church in the United States.
Like Jose Gomez, another immigrant who is presumptuous enough to lecture Americans about American history and identity.
Thanks for the information. I suppose the good bishop has admonished the elites in Colombia on the need to clean up the corruption and to improve the nation’s economy that has apparently created such intolerable conditions.
Wish the bishops (and the nuns!!) would show a little solidarity with the dyslexic/dyscalculaic/etc community.
.
Just because dyslexics frequently have high intelligence does not mean they all go to MIT and walk out with $75,000 starting income.
.
Many suffer socially as well as educationally and the job situation upon adulthood can look bleak. As many prisoners are dyslexic, I think it is a good bet if it was caught early in school, we’d have fewer children in trouble and fewer adults in prison.
.
I mean no ill will toward those looking for a better life, but we have plenty of hurting children/adults who were born here. Don’t they deserve the same concern?
Tony,
North Americans, with the exception of those descended from our Indian tribes, are all the product of quite diverse immigrant populations from the past 400-500 years. I dislike the term “diverse ” because it’s become a cliche, but it really does describe our immigrant history.
I don’t think race or ethnicity should even enter into a Catholic conversation regarding what to conserve in America. Color and ethnicity simply don’t signify but culture does.
A Judeo Christian culture is what conservative Christians and others should be concerned about preserving. Not Anglo Saxonism. Culture, not color is what’s critical.
And yes, I strongly believe that sovereign nations have a right to secure their borders and enforce immigration laws. And preserve their unique cultures. But you have to have enough population to ensure a functioning society to pass that culture down to. Societies that are ageing and not reproducing themselves won’t be capable of that and will eventually be replaced.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Immigrants – they are ambassadors of the Good News.
All of them? How so? In what way?