wfn.org | Violence Against Women - report to Ecumenical Decade Festival

[George Conklin <gconklin@wfn.org>]

Ecumenical Decade Festival
Press Release No. 2 
For Immediate Use
28 November 1998

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THE CHURCH
ACKNOWLEDGED WITH LITURGY AND TEARS

Delegates to the World Council of Churches Decade Festival wept, sang and
danced Saturday as church women from five nations offered harrowing
personal testimonies of violence and abuse.

The statements included stories of rape, domestic beatings, sexual
trafficking and abusive employment practices by church institutions.  

But the Festival*s Hearing on Violence Against Women in the Church also
featured four positive testimonials on efforts to confront the issue  and
four statements of commitment to continue working on the problem.

The World Council of Churches Decade Festival, meeting 27-30 November on
the campus of Belvedere Technical Teachers Training College, precedes the
Eighth Assembly of the WCC which meets at the University of Zimbabwe in
Harare 3-14 December.   More than 1,000 women -- and some 30 men -- are
participating in the Festival.

A Canadian Anglican priest told of being sexually abused as a child by her
priest father.  Later, after her parents forced her to join a cult, she was
forced to have sex with a young man designated by the cult as her
*husband.*  *I did not refuse because I did not know what would happen if I
did,* she said.  *I call that rape.*

A woman from Papua New Guinea said she was in a violently abusive marriage
for six years and sought an annulment from the Catholic Church after she
left her husband for another man.  Twenty-two years later, the Church has
taken no action and she is unable to receive Holy Communion.

*The funny thing about this is the perpetrator is not punished by the
Church about the violence but the person who took me in and cares very much
for me is punished for doing good,* she said.  *It should not take 22 years
to get an annulment.*

Not all the stories described physical violence.  A clergy woman from
Aoteara-New Zealand told how she was forced to resign from her position as
a coordinator of ministry education because her supervisors perceived her
as a trouble-maker.  When she asked her church to evaluate why she had been
forced out, her bishop interpreted her request as a *personal attack.*  Her
ministry license was not renewed.

*To those who look at me the metaphorical bruises do not show,* the woman
said.  *Yet from the inside the *bruises* have become disabling.  The face
of the institution is still smiling benevolently, the words from its
painted mouth are still sweet.*

Just as often, said Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz of the United States, male
dominated church structures abuse women by not taking seriously their
theology or their gifts.  *Women need to understand that God can be
understood through women*s experience,* she said.  *Women*s theologies
simply reclaim that as women we are made in the image of God.*
 
The hearing opened with a liturgical ceremony in which nine women from
around the world carried vessels of water representing women*s tears and
poured the water into a large bowl on the altar.

*I bring the tears of African women, of those who survived and those who
never made it,* said the first woman.  *Our tears as victims of war and
internal conflicts.  Our tears as women whose story was never told.  Our
tears as women, struggling to survive because of national debts and global
economic control.*
 
World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser -- the only man
on the podium -- declared the Church *should not cover up the sickness any
more.*

*My final commitment is to work for and encourage a community of women and
men where the sin of violence against women can be confessed and the
healing power of forgiveness can be experienced,* Raiser said.

The hearing concluded with a *healing act in the Shaman tradition from
Korea* led by Professor Chung Hyun Kyung, who used music and dance to lead
women from *crucifixion to resurrection.*

A liturgical dancer swirled a rainbow-colored streamer behind her as other
women passed throughout the audience with patches of color pinned to their
sleeves.  Delegates reached out to touch the colors as Chung sang
reassurances that a woman*s touch has great healing power:  *Changes,
changes, everything she touches changes.* 

World Council of Churches
Press and Information Office, Harare
Tel:  +263.91.23.23.81
E-Mail:  jwn8@staff.wcc-coe.org
http://www.wcc-coe.org