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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

Because she was a devout catholic and her priest was her confessor.

Yes i understand. That religious stuff can really mess with your head.

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement entitled, “When I Call For Help: A Pastoral Response To Domestic Violence Against Women” that addresses this issue and offers answers to the questions surrounding abusive marriages. In the introduction to the document it states:

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The Catholic Church teaches that violence against another person in any form fails to treat that person as someone worthy of love. Instead, it treats the person as an object to be used. When violence occurs within a sacramental marriage, the abused spouse may question, “How do these violent acts relate to my promise to take my spouse for better or for worse?” The person being assaulted needs to know that acting to end the abuse does not violate the marriage promises. While violence can be directed towards men, it tends to harm women and children more.

It further states:

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Finally, we emphasize that no person is expected to stay in an abusive marriage. Some abused women believe that church teaching on the permanence of marriage requires them to stay in an abusive relationship. They may hesitate to seek a separation or divorce. They may fear that they cannot re-marry in the Church. Violence and abuse, not divorce, break up a marriage. We encourage abused persons who have divorced to investigate the possibility of seeking an annulment. An annulment, which determines that the marriage bond is not valid, can frequently open the door to healing.

You can read this statement from the US Catholic bishops, visit the USCCB website where you will find the statement in it’s entirety. And of course, our prayers go out to all who have experienced a situation like this.

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

Because she was a devout catholic and her priest was her confessor.

Yes i understand. That religious stuff can really mess with your head.

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Over the past 20 years, empirical study has expanded greatly, highlighted by large funded research programs. The first edition of his Handbook of Religion and Health (Koenig et al., 2001) summarized hundreds of studies analyzing effects of dimensions of religion on depression, suicide, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and other psychoses, alcohol and drug use, delinquency, features of personality, and other outcomes. The weight of evidence was positive: over half of the studies in these categories point to a statistically significant protective
effect. Nevertheless, besides Koenig’s own work and that of several of his colleagues and collaborators, most studies are one-off analyses from small samples of convenience.

Medical sociologists, health psychologists, and gerontologists have done a more sophisticated job at identifying impacts of religious life on mental health indicators. Studies of dimensions of psychological distress and well-being, many of them large-scale probability surveys, consistently fi nd a protective effect of religious participation (see Levin & Chatters, 1998). Within the gerontological literature, especially, features of institutional religious involvement (e.g. attendance at worship services) and non-institutional involvement (e.g. private prayer, embeddedness in religious support networks) have been associated with positive mental health outcomes and high scores on scales and indices assessing psychosocial constructs such as self-esteem, mastery (self-efficacy), optimism, hope, and dimensions of well-being. This overall finding has been replicated across
age cohorts, in both sexes, and regardless of social class, race or ethnicity, religious affiliation, and specific diagnosis or outcome measure (see Levin,1997)...

To summarize, religious involvement, broadly defined, exhibits a salutary and primary-preventive function in relation to psychological distress and outcomes related to mental health and well-being. Findings are consistent, and a protective effect of religiousness seems to be especially salient among older adults...

When examining population rates of morbidity, however, there is a modest advantage, on average, attributable to religious practice...

To summarize, empirical evidence supports a generally protective effect of religious involvement for mental illness and psychological distress. Like all epidemiologic findings, there are exceptions: e.g. individuals whose religious ideations
and practices contribute to, or reflect, pathology. But, on average, this finding is statistically significant, replicated, and modest in magnitude.

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Empirical studies of many groups dealing with major life stressors such as natural disaster, illness, loss of loved ones, divorce and serious mental illness show that religion and spirituality are generally helpful to people in coping, especially people with the fewest resources facing the most uncontrollable of problems.

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ORIGINAL: Awareness

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ORIGINAL: UllrsIshtar
Either way, healthy people don't stick around in situations like that, and when somebody does it's absolutely clear evidence of the fact that there's something wrong with them.

Don't let the sisterhood hear you say that. They'll accuse you of victim-blaming.

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

First fault: being religious and being spiritual are two totally different things. Religion is for sheep that need rules to follow. I am sure their mental health is good because sheep like rules and they like to be around other sheep as well as they enjoy having a shepherd who tell tgem how good they are and how safe they are for doing such a good job following the rules. I am sure when one of the sheep no longer wants to follow the rules their mental health can easily become very negatively affected by religion. (At the extreme... that burning in hell thing eternally can really do a job on you.)

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: tamaka

First fault: being religious and being spiritual are two totally different things. Religion is for sheep that need rules to follow. I am sure their mental health is good because sheep like rules and they like to be around other sheep as well as they enjoy having a shepherd who tell tgem how good they are and how safe they are for doing such a good job following the rules. I am sure when one of the sheep no longer wants to follow the rules their mental health can easily become very negatively affected by religion. (At the extreme... that burning in hell thing eternally can really do a job on you.)

you'll notice (or apparently not) that what I posted says in one instance "religion" and in the second instance "religion AND spirituality."

so while there are indeed differences between the two, they are always not effectively separate and distinct either, perhaps especially as concerns mental health.

in either case, given what ive said in my first sentence, there is no "first fault."

as for your "religion is for sheep that need rules" position---unfortunately that just paints you as essentially clueless as to what "religion" is both in terms of the dictionary definition, and in actual practice.

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We encourage abused persons who have divorced to investigate the possibility of seeking an annulment. An annulment, which determines that the marriage bond is not valid, can frequently open the door to healing.