‘When I Call for Help’
Conference Explores Ways for Faith Community to Help End Domestic Violence

By Ray Dyer
The Sooner Catholic

OKLAHOMA CITY — What can the faith community do about the evil that is domestic violence? Plenty, according to two men who have helped create a faith-based initiative dedicated to bringing domestic violence out of the shadows where society has allowed it to destroy lives,            More than 20 parishes were represented at the domestic violence conference held Oct. 14 at the hidden behind a cloak    Pastoral Center in Oklahoma City. The audience heard comments from a number of speakers, of shame and denial.       including at right, Kent Peters, Attorney General Drew Edmondson, Archbishop Beltran, Susan                                                 Lepak, George Rigazzi and Deacon Glenn Vecchitto. Photo/Sooner Catholic

Kent Peters and Deacon Glenn Vecchitto traveled to Oklahoma City on Oct. 14 to share their experiences at the “When I Call for Help - Domestic Violence Awareness Conference.” Sponsored by the Archdiocesan Office of Family Life, the conference attracted representatives from 22 parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.

Organizers called that a very good start. A number of state agencies and organizations that deal directly with domestic violence were also represented at the conference.

Officials from these organizations, as well as Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, said domestic violence is a cycle that is usually handed from one generation to the next. Edmondson, who over the years has developed a number of programs to help victims of domestic violence, said, “The violence always escalates. A black eye becomes a broken arm. A broken arm becomes a hospital stay. A hospital stay becomes a homicide.”

Archbishop Beltran, welcoming the more than 60 people in the audience, said domestic violence is a sin. “It’s a sin because God created every human being in His image and likeness. For that reason every human person deserves to be loved, respected and seen as a brother and sister.” Archbishop Beltran called the conference “very exciting” and said it is time for the faith community of Oklahoma to join together in addressing this violation of human rights. Both Archbishop Beltran and the attorney general credited Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, D-Oklahoma City, with helping to pull the faith community into the effort to end, or at least diminish the high rate of domestic violence in Oklahoma. Hamilton, who addressed the conference about legislation directed at combating domestic violence, has for two years brought Oklahoma’s  religious leaders together to speak out against domestic violence.

Susan Lepak, associate director of the Office of Family Life, said she expects the ideas shared by Californians Peters and Vecchitto to be incorporated into a similar program to help those suffering from domestic violence here in Oklahoma.

Both Peters, who serves as Respect Life director for the Diocese of San Diego, and Deacon Vecchitto told of growing up in homes where violence was a common occurrence. Both said alcohol abuse often helped trigger the violence. Peters said he longs for the day when a perpetrator of domestic violence who wishes to change can find support in a group similar to Alcoholic Anonymous.

Vecchitto said the faith community has struggled to dive into the middle of domestic violence. He said faith communities “are about keeping families together.” But he added “It's not a sacramental relationship if someone is being hurt.”

In the United States, domestic violence affects more than one in four marriages and it makes no distinction between rich or poor or any other characteristic. “It’s in every zip code,” Vecchitto said. It’s for this reason Vecchitto and Peters teamed to help form “Safe Place Faith Communities.” A little more than a year old, the Safe Place Faith Communities program at Vecchitto’s parish in San Diego has already helped 38 people break away from the cycle of domestic violence. He said the results would be the same no matter where the program is initiated. Nine parishes in the San Diego Diocese are now participating in Safe Place Faith Communities.

The program pulls on experience of those entities and government  agencies that have for years battled the scourge of domestic violence. Parishioners are trained to help  victims of domestic violence and in many other areas where assistance is needed. The difference, according to Vecchitto, between the Safe Place Faith Communities program and the others, “is we bring God into the picture. We need to bring God into this mess,” he said. Peters said both he and his wife grew up in abusive homes. It has taken them years to understand how to deal with the issues they carried from their childhoods. He said it has taken even longer for the faith community to learn how to deal with these real life issues.

Peters asked conference participants to list reasons why the faith community would be reluctant to step into the domestic violence picture. Some of the reasons tossed out in-   cluded: shame, denial, lack of competency, confidentiality, fear of retaliation or sparking even more abuse.

Peters may have best summed up why he, Vecchitto and others have been able to overcome the reasons why the faith community has been unwilling  to aggressively tackle the issue of domestic violence when he said as a child he would “hear one message” at church and then watch as a totally different message was lived out in his home.

“It didn't make sense,” he said.

Edmondson said if the cycle of domestic violence can be broken, it will have a tremendous impact on the state’s incarceration rate 15 years from now.

As George Rigazzi, director of the Office of Family Life put it in his opening welcome to the audience, “We’re planting seeds.”