CAROLE Danby hopes to see the Church do more to raise its voice against the scourge of domestic and family violence in Queensland.
Mrs Danby, a parishioner at Our Lady of Graces Church, Carina, is the Catholic representative on the Queensland Churches Together Commission set-up to address the issue.
She said 11,000 children and young people were in out-of-home care, the majority coming from situations with violence in the home.
The Queensland Churches Together Commission’s 60-page booklet has a section that addresses the unique challenges and repercussions for children who witness violence in the home.
Mrs Danby said they did not have to see the violence; sometimes just hearing it could deeply affect children.
“It affects their education, it affects their ability to turn up to school, even, and they’re behind … in almost every way,” she said.
“They could also be over-protective and there’s also a sense that what you witness can play out in the next generation. It affects children enormously.”
Mrs Danby’s area of expertise on the commission was on the misuse of Holy Scripture and how it could be used for spiritual abuse.
She said this was of particular concern for the Church.
Every year, the commission was booked-in by Brisbane’s priests and, for her part, Mrs Danby offered guidance for priests in their critical role of interpreting Scripture for parishioners on Sundays.
She said sometimes priests could unintentionally reinforce attitudes that justified abuse during their homilies through certain interpretations of Scripture.
It was important that priests thought about the possibility that members of their parish might be experiencing violence in the home and how the words of their homily could feed into their lives, she said.
She encouraged priests and parish staff to take part in a free program created by Ridley College, an Anglican training college.
While there were other courses available, the Ridley College course was aimed particularly at Church ministers.
She said the course taught important skills like how to recognise the signs of violence, how to become a more approachable person for people who have experienced violence and, crucially, how to support a person when one was aware of a situation.
“I absolutely believe that Jesus was a messiah of peace and if anything that isn’t of peace, if we’re upholding that in any way … it all lays down a culture that says, ‘It’s okay to be powerful over someone else’,” she said. “And it’s not.
“Jesus challenged all of that.”
To find out more about what to do in a parish, head to www.qct.org.au
