"Dear Bishops
I am deeply disturbed by your latest letter to parishioners that emphasised the need to stay home and fails to mention the need to maintain good physical and mental health.
"One reason why you might actually rethink what you wrote, and issue a more accurate statement, is to help the many Catholic women who are in bad relationships suffering verbal, physical, sexual and psychological abuse.
"If you knew anything about what goes on behind closed doors for many women and children, you most certainly wouldn’t have condemned them to further punishment by writing what you did.
"It is common knowledge that Catholic/Christian abusers use the Bible, and will now use this letter to enforce women to stay home and not be able to go for fresh air.
"Only the most callous, evil, or unthinking men would dream to put something out in the public domain like this. The government has not stopped encouraging people to get out for exercise. This will help curb domestic violence and it will help women and children to cope with their experiences. "I cannot even begin to express how disgusted I am by the additional danger your letter creates for the vulnerable. I hope you move to remedy the situation immediately. "Too many Catholic marriages are characterised by violence, and a letter like this, during a four-week lockdown, has potential for exacerbating its most detrimental effects on families.
"God bless"
Sharon Crooks
Post script:
Further
support for those suffering domestic violence - just released.
Thanks for that. It is one of the angles I have not thought of.
ReplyDeletePhilippa O'Neill says:
ReplyDeleteAmen... talked to a lady today... parishioner... her son has not left the house since lockdown.. he looks after her and buys the groceries. She is living on what little is left in the cupboards. Cuppa soup. He is thinking he is not allowed to go out. I've assured her he is ok to go shopping and if he won't then I will. He usually walks every day. The fear mongering by the government and pushed by the Catholic church is a sin in itself. I keep hearing from priests not to go outside.. this is wrong. If you are able then you can go outside. How many people have not opened the door in the last 5 days for fear of catching this virus? Shameful... spreading fear.
Sharon Crooks says:
Philippa, https://amp.rnz.co.nz/.../0b6a3a44-a4a5-416a-b309...
Delete or hide this
Domestic harm experts say be kind during lockdown
RNZ.CO.NZ
Domestic harm experts say be kind during lockdown
Philippa O'Neill says:
ReplyDeleteSharon, yes... maybe should have stopped alcohol sales for lock down... hmmm I bet! Tax take would drop. Imagine the outcry!
Sharon Crooks says:
Aunty “Jacinda, the kind” has promulgated a cover-up narrative very much at odds with the violence before us and all around us, some of which is fuelled by alcohol, some by poverty, some by lack of resources and opportunities that prohibit people from flourishing and becoming the person God made them to be.
The title of the article is testimony to this ‘cover up’ mentality. Abusers are sometimes very kind people on the surface, but beneath lurks the urge to control, manipulate, and harm. A rapist lures victims in with ‘kindness’ but that doesn’t prevent the rape; husbands can lure their wives with gifts and compliments but that doesn’t prevent all manner of abuse. The exhortation to ‘be kind’ is something we might call out to our children in the back yard; the echo of which cannot stretch to the abuser, utterly lost to right thinking in the heat of the moment.
I mean, it is usually an insufficient rebuke to break up the squabble of three year olds let alone adults out of control!
Sharon Crooks says:
I should have also added a note regarding the downplay of ‘domestic violence’! All of a sudden it is now ‘domestic harm’! Really? Why did the word ‘violence’ get dropped? Is it another way in which women and children’s lived experience of abuse gets downplayed?
I suppose it is - we don’t refer to an aborted baby left to die ‘violence’ but (health) ‘care’. Looked at like this way one might also reduce actual devastating domestic violence to a bit of ‘harm’ in which case ‘be kind’ is like putting a Mickey Mouse plaster on the problem whilst you wait for the scratch to go away.
Philippa O'Neill says"
Sharon, totally... word play... and that's disgraceful.