MADISON (WI)
Catholic Herald
December 7, 2017
By Mary C. Uhler
We’ve been hearing a lot about incidents of sexual abuse of girls and women this year.
It is a difficult subject to talk about, and I think many people want to avoid discussing it. However, I think we all have a responsibility to deal with this issue, especially in our own families.
My experiences as a child
Being a teacher, my mother was ahead of her time in discussing the dangers of sexual abuse with her children.
She warned us — when we were pretty young — to be cautious about any suspicious behaviors of boys and men. If someone tried to do something we didn’t like or think was appropriate, she asked us to tell her right away.
I remembered her warnings when a boy in our neighborhood tried to do something inappropriate with me. I told my mother, she talked with his mother, and that was the end of that kind of behavior.
When I was in seventh grade, a boy pulled me into a locker at school during recess and closed the door. I also told my mother about that, she talked with his mother, and that ended that behavior.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell my teacher about that incident, but it was perhaps because we hadn’t discussed what to do about that kind of behavior in our classroom.
A pope’s letter to women
Another person who was ahead of his time was St. John Paul II. In 1995, he wrote a letter to women of the world, still available on the Vatican website (http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html). In that letter, he said, “Unfortunately, we are heirs to a history which has conditioned us to a remarkable extent. . . . Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude.”
When it comes to setting women free from every kind of exploitation and domination, St. John Paul II said, we have only to look to the attitude of Jesus Christ himself as revealed in the Gospels. “Transcending the established norms of his own culture, Jesus treated women with openness, respect, acceptance, and tenderness. In this way, he honored the dignity which women have always possessed according to God’s plan and in his love.”
In his letter, St. John Paul II addressed the topic of violence against women in the area of sexuality. “At the threshold of the Third Millennium, we cannot remain indifferent and resigned before this phenomenon,” he said. “The time has come to condemn vigorously the types of sexual violence which frequently have women for their object and to pass laws which effectively defend them from such violence.”
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