By Anuja Susan Varghese
Kochi, Nov 18, 2019: The Family Commission of Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) will create a matrimonial website, with a separate option for the widows to register.
“We want to bring in a change in the overall outlook to widows in our community. Even today society prescribes dress code for them and forces them to behave in a certain manner in social gatherings. They are humans and in no way they should be discriminated in society,” explained Father Paul Madassery, KCBC Family Commission Secretary.
The Church official pointed out that the remarriage of widows, even very young one, has become a rarity. He claimed the new website would give Christian widows hope for a new life, especially those under 40 years.
“We will help the young widows to register in the online matrimonial site and set up a new life for them. People today prefer to marry women widowed rather than divorced. The new matrimonial site will be fully operational in the coming days,” the priest added.
Aiming for widow empowerment in our community, the KCBC Family Commission is also all set to take count of the total number of widows in all Catholic churches including Syro Malabar, Latin, and Syro Malankara churches. As an initial step, a ‘widow forum’ was formed at a meeting in Kochi mid-November to coordinate and impart training to the widows.
“We believe that there will be over lakh (100,000) widows in the Catholic Church. As we are collecting the data on a state level basis for the first time, it will take over a year for us to get the whole details. We will coordinate each diocese to collect the list of widows from the parishes,” Father Madassery said.
Select widows from the ‘widow forum’ will be given training in groups. “A widow will be able to understand the emotions of another widow, therefore we will give training to the widows who will be able to relate to the problems and issues of others. There are widows from low-income groups, who are unaware of the benefits they can get from the government, we want to educate them so that they can reap its benefits,” the priest added.
Source: newindianexpress.com