The Swiss bishops have expressed an “altogether positive” evaluation of the bill on combating violence in the family and in the couple recently presented in the Swiss Parliament. In a letter to federal Councillor Christoph Blocher, Bishop Amédée Grab and Abbé Agnell Rickenmann, respectively president and general secretary of the Swiss Episcopal Conference, have complimented the proposed legislation, and expressed the hope it would attract “the backing of the various institutions consulted and the support of Swiss MPs”. “Every form of violence, in whatever form it is expressed write the two representatives of the Swiss bishops is an intolerable threat to the dignity of the human person. Bearers of a message of peace and reconciliation, the Churches have the struggle against this scourge particularly at heart”. The bishops emphasise that the victims of domestic violence are especially women and children, and in general “the most vulnerable individuals of our society”. “The Episcopal Conference says the letter is convinced that violence in the family and in the couple cannot be considered a purely private problem and that the State has the duty to protect those who suffer its consequences”. In particular, the bishops appreciate the initiative of introducing legal protection even for those threatened in their “psychic health”, thus adding the “psychological consequences” of domestic violence to the formulation of the law: climate of terror, intimidation, and every type of manipulation. The Episcopal Conference also appreciates the fact that “unintentional acts of violence are equally taken into consideration as illicit threat to the personality”, since they are acts that “always have serious consequences for the physical and/or psychological integrity of the victims”.
