There she sat wearing a neck brace. The contrast between her warm, empathetic smile and her seemingly petrified upper body was striking.

I was in training to facilitate discussion groups at the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center in Santa Cruz, California. She was attending a support group for battered women. Our paths crossed for a brief moment, but being in the presence of someone who could be murdered that very night by her abusive spouse haunts me to this day.

According to the Government of Canada, in 2022, police reported 117,093 victims of intimate partner violence across our country, with the vast majority of victims being women. One Australian study that included Anglican and Catholic churches found that 22 per cent of domestic violence perpetrators go to church regularly. Chances are, you have sat beside a victim or perpetrator at Mass at some point in time.

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Recently, I explored the Code of Canon Law to see what the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching is on this topic.

I came upon canon 1153. This canon indicates that grave mental or physical danger constitutes a legitimate cause for a battered spouse to leave the abuser.

This canon of Church law is so important to know, and to tell others about, as there is a tendency for some pastors (of various denominations), friends and even family members to pressure an abused spouse to remain with an abuser. 

Dr. Marie Fortune, an expert on abuse in churches, wrote in her book, Keeping the Faith, that some battered women who leave their spouses are ostracized by their churches and that their pastors tell them to go home and be a better wife so that the abuse will stop. Pastors might also counsel them to submit to their husbands, pray harder and to forgive their abusers. 

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Some pastors, it is argued, are rather too quick to encourage forgiveness. Fortune points to the Gospel of Luke (17:1-4) in which Jesus states that true repentance is a required element of forgiveness. Such repentance, she continues, means abusers never hit again and requires a long period of time for them to change their controlling, demanding and dominating ways. Even if there is true change on the abuser’s part, Fortune writes, the battered spouse may find that the damage done was too deep for reconciliation to take place.

Distorted interpretations of Scripture also figure amongst ways used to pressure battered women to remain in abusive marriages. Jaime Simpson, an Australian domestic violence and religious trauma counsellor, found that “In a religious context, abusers will draw from Biblical theology, themes of female submission and male headship to control and manipulate their wives into believing they must endure their abuse.” 

Rev. Geneece Goertzen, author of Taking It Seriously, states that some pastors encourage marriage counseling in cases of abuse, but such counseling is not recommended in these situations because domestic violence is not a mutual problem.

As mentioned, unlike some other Christian denominations, the Roman Catholic Church offers the Code of Canon Law which states very clearly that danger to the battered spouse and children is a sufficient reason to leave the abusive spouse. Yet, this is not a message I have heard delivered from the ambo.

According to Rev. Dr. Jay Kieve, an abuse prevention and response advocate in South Carolina, there are few pastors who address domestic violence from the pulpit, and information is not easy to find in churches about shelters and other support services available to the abused.

Goertzen encourages churches to include discussions about domestic violence in their programming such as men’s and women’s groups, seminars and workshops. She also provides tips, in her book, on how to prevent abusive marriages by asking probing questions during pre-marital counseling. 

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The marriage preparation courses run by the Catholic Family Services of Toronto provide a good example to follow. According to Florence Loh, director of programs and services, couples complete a relationship inventory prior to attending the courses to “flush out any intimate partner violence dynamic in the relationship.” In addition, deacons teaching the course receive domestic violence training and “give a consistent and clear message that our Church does not condone any form of abuse in a marriage.” 

Catholic Family Services of Toronto is a beneficiary of the archdiocese’s ShareLife campaign. I am happy that my contribution will help to prevent horrors such as I witnessed many years ago.