Catholic Church Examines Domestic Violence At Annual Synod

Posted: 6th August 2004

Khmer Church leaders reflecting in small groups during the synod 2004

CAMBODIA PHNOM PENH (UCAN)
Domestic violence and its effects on couples, children and youth were the focus of this year's synod of the Church in Cambodia.

More than 100 lay leaders, bishops, priests and Religious from the country's three Church jurisdictions participated in the annual synod July 20-23 in Phnom Penh.

They listened to experts on domestic violence, shared family experiences and acknowledged that Cambodian Catholic families are not spared from the climate of violence that they said permeates Cambodian society.

An official of an NGO working on domestic violence, who was invited to speak at the synod, talked about the causes.

Apart from violence being a common human trait, the official explained, violence in Cambodia also results from frustration over a general lack of opportunities as well as many people's experience of one of the "most horrendous genocides" of the 20th century.
The radical communist Khmer Rouge seized control of the country in 1975 and ruled until 1979, when Vietnamese troops forced it from power. During the "killing fields" era of the Khmer Rouge, up to 2 million Cambodians are believed to have died from forced labor, starvation, lack of medical attention and extrajudicial killings.

French missioner Father Gerald Vogin, in his recent study on domestic violence in rural Catholic communities of Kompong Cham apostolic prefecture, said, "The recent history of this country has been saturated by civil war, political uncertainty and corruption across all social levels."

Father Tonlop Sophol at synod 21

During the last 30 years, these calamities have brought suffering to virtually every Cambodian, he claims. "One-fourth of the population of the country died during the turbulent years from 1970 to 1998, especially during the period of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. During this period the levels of social disorganization were almost total, since social structures were destroyed almost completely," the priest's study says.

Monsignor Antonysamy Susairaj, apostolic prefect of Kompong Cham, stressed how the reflections at the synod enlightened Church leaders. He said: "Before, many of them believed that domestic violence was due to drunkenness and to extreme poverty. They realize now that those who do not drink and rich families also have problems of violence."

Indian-born Monsignor Susairaj told UCA News that leaders of "our Christian communities understood that the real cause of domestic violence is that men consider their wives as their property" and want to assert this ownership.

Synod 21, Catholic Church in Cambodia

"This is a good learning that can produce very good fruits in all our small communities," said the Paris Foreign Missions Society prelate. His prefecture, based 75 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh, another prefecture based in Battambang, 250 kilometers northwest of the capital, and Phnom Penh vicariate are the three Cambodian Church jurisdictions.

Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, told UCA News he was satisfied synod participants felt free to express themselves. He particularly cited their spontaneity in discussing the negative influence of violence in their home.

Monsignor Susairaj said one of the synod highlights came when leaders of each Church jurisdiction presented, through the use of drama, the most common forms of domestic violence in their life and community.

Father Francois Ponchaud, author of "Cambodia, Year Zero" and "The Cathedral of the Rice Field," recently told UCA News that during the 15 years of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese-backed regime that followed, Catholics learned how to be quiet and to follow the orders of the ruling party.

The Paris Foreign Missions priest said many Catholics remained faithful but lived their faith in secret, in the intimacy of their homes. Some suffered trauma to the point that their faith became but a remote reminiscence, he added. When freedom of public speech was re-established, Father Ponchaud said, they had to learn again how to pray together, reflect and talk in public.

"It is in this context," he stressed, "that the synods of Church leaders became an important event of the life of the Church."

Synod organizers said the objectives of the annual gathering include strengthening unity of the Church in Cambodia, encouraging mutual support in common plans and exchanging pastoral experiences.

The local Church has been holding synods since 1991, two years after the return of the first missioners. It organized two synods a year from 1992 to 1998 and one a year after that, with the aim of generating a new dynamism in a Church that virtually disappeared during the years 1975-1989.

After the recent synod, participants returned to their towns to transmit to their brothers and sisters in faith the reflections and insights on the common problem of "domestic violence."

Church statistics from 2002 say Catholics numbered 19,000, or 0.16 percent of a 12 million population. Many Cambodian Catholics are ethnic Vietnamese.

Article Source: UCANEWS and CSC Cambodia