European Churches" "
“It’s not only the women’s associations that ought to denounce such violence. It’s not just a female campaign: we must act together, men and women, to reconstruct the future of those who have been abused in body and soul”. The words are those of Dominique Jacquemin-Mangé, general secretary of Catholic Action for women in France (ACGF), which contributed to the study on “Violence against Women” prepared by the Social Commission of the French Episcopal Conference, and presented in Paris in recent days (cf. SirEurope no. 66). “The time for silence is over”, declares Jacquemin-Mangé. “This intolerable reality needs to be denounced wherever it occurs. The ACGF expresses the face of a Church that listens, understands and denounces. The Social Commission uses its own authority and its own reflection to restore hope to the women who have had the courage to speak out, so that others may not suffer the same fate”. Violence against women, continues the ACGF secretary is “a reality that many would have preferred to keep hidden; it is “unworthy of a country of human rights, and for us Catholic women it is truly intolerable”. But what is the commitment of the association in this regard? “We are in contact with the Ministry of Women’s Rights”, says Jacquemin-Mangé. The members of the association are working with the delegates for women’s rights and with their own bishop; they are providing information so that women and girls know their own rights”.
