Polish fury at anti-violence accord

A senior Polish MP has accused her country's Church of ignoring family violence after its leaders denounced a European convention designed to combat violence against women.

"The claim that the Catholic Church tolerates sexual violence is quite justified," said Wanda Nowicka, deputy speaker of Poland's Sejm lower house. 

"The Church wants the family to stay together, irrespective of how pathological it gets."

In his Christmas homily Archbishop Jozef Michalik, the bishops' conference president, denounced the Government's decision to sign the Council of Europe's April 2011 Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence and said the law was a "blatant attack" on traditional families.