Immediate danger
If you are in danger right now, start here.
Please contact emergency services or a crisis line before reading anything else on this site. Prayer is real, and it does not replace immediate, professional help. Nothing here will ask you to stay somewhere unsafe.
United States
Emergency: 911
Crisis: call or text 988
Outside the United States, use your local emergency number. These pages will still be here afterwards.
Verified national services
Confidential, free, available 24/7
If someone monitors your devices
- 01
Use a device the other person cannot reach if you possibly can: a library computer, a friend's phone, or a work machine you control.
- 02
Advocates can talk by text or online chat when a phone call would be overheard. You do not have to speak out loud to get help.
- 03
Clear your history after visiting pages like this one, and consider whether an unexpectedly empty history would itself raise questions.
- 04
Shared accounts, family phone plans, location sharing, and shared photo libraries can all reveal activity. An advocate can help you work through which ones apply.
Every page on this site carries a Quick Exit control that leaves immediately. It is in the corner of the screen, and it does not ask you to confirm.
Next steps
Whatever is closest to your situation
If you are being hurt at home
Call the domestic violence hotline before making a plan. Leaving is statistically the most dangerous moment, and advocates plan it with you: shelter, protective orders, documents, children, and pets.
Read: leaving an abusive relationshipIf you are thinking about ending your life
Call or text 988 now. Despair is not a sin to be confessed away, and Catholic teaching does not condemn people who are in that much pain. You are worth the phone call.
Read: does God still love me?If a child may be being harmed
Contact civil authorities first, then the diocesan safeguarding office if the Church is involved. Reporting to a priest is not a substitute for reporting to authorities.
Read: abuse connected to the ChurchIf you have nowhere to sleep tonight
Dial 211 in the United States for local shelter, food, and emergency assistance referrals. Faith questions can wait until you are warm and fed.
Open the help directoryWhat faith does not require of you
Catholic teaching does not require you to remain in a home where you are being harmed. It does not require you to forgive on a schedule, to reconcile with someone dangerous, or to keep silent to protect a marriage, a family name, a priest, or a parish.
Separation for safety is permitted, and seeking civil protection is not disloyalty. If someone has told you otherwise using Scripture or the vocabulary of obedience, that was misuse, and it is worth naming as such with a trained advocate.