In August, two commissions of the Bishops' Conference of Ireland, the Pastoral Episcopal Commission, and the Commission for Justice and Peace issued a joint document, simply titled Domestic Violence . It cataloged the extent of the problem in Ireland, wondered who or what was to blame, and then recommended ways in which it could be tackled. Finger-Pointing Among those it pointed the finger at was the Church herself. Within marriage, the mutual submission of spouses was often overlooked, or equated with unilateral dominance. As the text in Domestic Violence shows, there is no teaching in the Church today to justify domestic violence.
Rape is rape, whether within or without the marriage relationship.
A wife or husband has the right, and possibly the duty, not to stay in a seriously abusive relationship. Apparently, what this passage had in mind was those priests of yore who would advise women to return to their abusive husbands and offer it up. Doubtless such priests existed, but one wonders exactly which teachings of the Church were used in the past to justify domestic violence. No examples were offered. Certainly not Bishops Willie Walsh and Larry Ryan, who penned the above passage, which appears in the foreword to the document.