While speaking on Italian television show Francis and the Invisibles on Sunday, Pope Francis decried that there was something “almost satanic” about the number of women facing domestic violence, especially during the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdown restrictions that have kept people at home and more socioeconomically insecure.

The program centered on individuals struggling in different ways. While speaking to Giovanna, a victim of domestic violence who said she had found herself homeless and jobless with four children after leaving her abusive relationship, the pope condemned the violence that many women face in the domestic sphere. “The number of women who are beaten, abused in their homes, even by their husbands, is very, very high,” he said. “The problem is that, for me, it is almost satanic, because it is taking advantage of the weakness of those who cannot defend themselves, can only block the blows. It is humiliating, very humiliating.”