“Violence against women afflicts our society and needs a common commitment so that it can be eradicated from its roots which, as Pope Francis has also stressed, grow in the soil of prejudice, possession, injustice”.

This is the message published, through a video, by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), its secretary general, Monsignor Giuseppe Baturi, archbishop of Cagliari, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was celebrated on Saturday 25 November.

The Church’s commitment

“The latest event that has shocked national public opinion bears the names Giulia and Filippo,” said Archbishop Baturi, referring to the murder of 22-year-old Giulia Cecchettin at the hands of her ex-boyfriend.

“Common names, which could belong to people we know or members of our family, because there is a poison of violence that is really corrupting so many of our relationships,” the prelate noted. “As the Church we are committed first and foremost to prayer, that God may touch the hearts of so many of our young people and welcome the victims of violence into his Kingdom of happiness. But the Church is also committed to educating in love and respect for the freedom of others”.

Solid objectives

True love,’ Monsignor Baturi concludes, ‘is that which does not demand, which does not withhold, which does not possess, but which serves the other in his freedom. Love is living so that the other may live, without ever forcing him/her into our instinctive or design schemes. It is a day that must make us reflect and lead us to prayer and commitment so that it does not happen again’.

For the secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference, 25 November is therefore “a symbolic date that not only wants to draw attention to the widespread phenomenon of feminicide, but urgently calls for a clear political and socio-cultural positioning with solid objectives”.