Abuse is intolerable

I do not agree with Carmelo Lia's views (June 23) that the advice given by a priest to the women who was constantly being abused by her husband was correct. How can he talk of fundamental Christian principles when someone is being constantly abused? Why is it always women who have to bow their heads to following such principles when their partners are clearly not doing so? Where is his sense of justice?

Why do we still have the mentality that women should retain their roles of keeping the family together even in situations where it is humanly impossible? In my opinion, the woman should have never followed the advice of the priest because due to this so-called good advice she put herself and her future children in great danger.

I do not see it as Christian-like at all telling someone to put up with a dangerous situation and also risk the life of an innocent for the sake of following the teachings of the Church. I wonder whether Mr Lia would put up with such a situation.

The priest should have offered help to this woman to get her out of her situation and provided her and her children the necessary protection from her dangerous husband. Had she known better, the woman could have also sought to have her marriage annulled as she was very young when she got married and thus did not fully know what she was in for.

This case could have ended up far worse then it did as it could have resulted in the death of the woman and her child at the time or possibly the death of the rest of the family as it is today.

I wonder how the priest would have felt had this woman and her unborn child ended up dead thanks partly to his advice. I also wonder how he could possibly have been at peace with his conscience and slept at night knowing he was further putting this woman's life at risk including also the child she was carrying at the time.

The Church should take note of such situations and tell priests to be very careful when giving advice on marital problems. I cannot see how people who do not know what being in a marriage is like can offer advice and tell people what to do even at the cost of risking their lives, as happened in this case, in order to keep the family and because religious teachings say so. Such cases should be left to professional marriage counsellors and lawyers.

It is true that one vows to get married for better and for worse but there is a limit to how acceptable the worse can be. Abuse should never be tolerated in any marriage or in any other situation.

Mr Lia questions why the women did not seek any help from other organisations. It is not easy for someone in her position to go out and seek help openly. Her husband, most probably being the person he was, followed her every move and controlled her every action, thus her only place of "freedom" was in a confessional where she was sure her husband cannot hear what she said, although I am sure he would have if he could. Also the situation in Gozo at the time was very different as Joseph Bonnici points out in his letter (June 17).

Abuse of both human beings and animals is morally wrong and needs to be taken much more seriously. Hopefully, with the new Domestic Violence Bill laws will be harsher for abusers and provide better protection for victims of abuse.

On a final note, nobody for any reason whatsoever both in a family, marriage, at the place of work or any other situation should tolerate abuse of any kind.