Ministers' understanding of battered women: Differences among Catholic male priests, Protestant female ministers and Protestant male ministers

Domestic violence does not stop at the threshold of the churches' doors. Domestic violence not only endangers victims' physical and mental health, but also their spiritual health. In this study Protestant and Catholic ministers' beliefs and attitudes on the issue of wife abuse and the possible effects of their beliefs and attitudes on interventions with battered women were examined. Results showed that the degree of ministers' adherence to fundamentalist religious beliefs and the gender of the minister may affect the breadth of their definition of wife abuse, their attitudes toward gender roles, whether or not the minister asks women about wife abuse, and the degree to which a wife or husband is judged responsible in the abuse.