14-Year-Old girl Who Was killed for Resisting Rape May Be Canonized. Her Story Like That of Saint Maria Goretti

[TheLittleLady]

We are not required to risk our lives by fighting a rapist. It is not at all sinful for one to cooperate with a rapist in order to save one’s life.

 

[stpurl]

I’m sorry, but yes, it does. Virginity is not simply an emotional or spiritual thing. It is also a physical thing. One loses virginity if one is penetrated by a male.

Not because ‘the hymen broke’ (as can happen through bike riding or tampon use). A man who penetrates a woman who has never had sexual intercourse vaginally has taken her physical virginity. That’s why it’s a BIG DEAL. It’s not the equivalent of somebody cutting off her hair (the hair will grow again). One doesn’t become a virgin again after this physical assault.

Emotionally too one is affected (just as any violent assault will have an emotional effect).

See, this is what I mean. In an attempt to assuage the rape victim’s feelings, we try to pretend that she didn’t REALLY lose her virginity. But she did. It’s a terrible thing, that’s why rape is such a heinous crime. It can’t be reversed.

 

[stpurl]

My dear little lady, I never said one was required to risk one’s life to fight a rapist NOR that it was sinful to cooperate. So I don’t know why you are telling me this? My post never said any of the above.

 

[TheLittleLady]

But striving to keep one’s virginity, even with danger of death through doing so, is still a heroic action.

Surviving rape is a heroic action. No more or less so if the person did not fight back.

 

[stpurl]

Surviving rape is a matter of luck for the most part. One woman could be lucky enough to talk her attacker down; another woman could try the same thing but have an attacker who can’t stand talking and went postal on her. Two women, same situation, two different men, two different results.

I think any woman who survives a rape has done her absolute best, whether she manages to avoid the rape or not, but I don’t think she is heroic just by surviving and this is NOT denigrating rape survivors in any way, or survivors of any other catastrophe.

We will just have to agree to disagree. I simply don’t agree with you; you don’t agree with me. Guess I’ll go with what Pope Francis has to say.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Heroic virtue is how the person lived not just what they did when threatened with death. And it’s directed outward not as self-preservation.

 

[TheLittleLady]

As said below by @Bruised_Reed, the Church (including Pope Francis) defines “heroic virtue” in how the person lived.

And please note, men can also be victims of rape. All rape survivors are heroes.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

In an attempt to assuage the rape victim’s feelings, we try to pretend that she didn’t REALLY lose her virginity. But she did. It’s a terrible thing, that’s why rape is such a heinous crime. It can’t be reversed.

I don’t think anyone is trying to assuage the feelings of a victim of rape but make it clear what is wrong and what isn’t. It is a loss of virginity but not purity. Fighting of a rapist can be heroic but is it virtue? What happened to the girl’s sister who was kidnapped with her? Did she freeze instead of fight or flight? Why isn’t she also considered for sainthood?

Also, losing ones virginity isn’t a terrible thing. That it can’t be reversed is not the worst thing and I can see why people think the emphasis on virginity by religious people is prurient. It is this attitude that leads to families thinking that dishonor is brought onthe family of a daughter (not a son) has consensual sex before marriage or if she is raped. That a woman has less a value because she isn’t a virgin is a social construct and is used to punish woman even though a man was also involved or actually violated that girl or woman.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

There are repetant saints so it’s defintely possible for someone who was a victim of sin to qualify if they meet the other requirements.

 

[Sarcelle]

Also, losing ones virginity isn’t a terrible thing. That it can’t be reversed is not the worst thing and I can see why people think the emphasis on virginity by religious people is prurient.

This hyper focus on virginity as a measure of someone’s worth is what gives rise to honor killings in the Middle East and Africa.

 

[PennyinCanada]

Again, I am not sure how resisting a rape is a testimony of somebody’s faith. How does resisting a rape make somebody a martyr for the Catholic faith?

Yes. An atheist could behaved the same way in that situation. I have the same question.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I mean, Jesus was sexually assaulted

Where on earth did you get this idea?

 

[stpurl]

No, the reasons for ‘honor killings’ have much more to do with religion than ‘loss of virginity’. It appears to me that quite a few Muslims have no problems with rape itself providing THEY do the raping. Honor killings more often these days have to do with the woman somehow ‘leaving the Faith’ by marrying a non-Muslim or herself converting to Christianity.

So what exactly would you have as a standard for ‘acceptable’ attention to virginity?

 

[stpurl]

Resisting rape because one’s faith holds that one’s sexual purity is a treasure to be guarded, and resisting rapists because one is concerned that the action of rape is a mortal sin, thereby resisting in order to protect one’s bodily purity as well as trying to protect another from mortal sin would be the testimony to faith. It has in fact been so in the Christian world for centuries. Apparently only in relatively recent times has it become something that is neither ‘necessary’ nor ‘heroic’.

 

[stpurl]

You know, I wonder what, if any, correlation there might be between the different points of view on this topic and the different points of view on another topic:
If a person is told to vocally reject Christ or die --or have his or her family killed–is it morally licit to reject Christ because “It’s under duress so it doesn’t count”?

I find that in current times a sizable number of people seem to feel that if not morally licit, it is both understandable and indeed GOOD to simply ‘do the rejection’ and trust that God will forgive because the end --saving one’s family, supposedly–justifies the means.

And they tend to criticize the person who refuses to reject God, even at the cost of his own and others’ lives–as being morally wrong.

See, I just don’t get this. And the Church consistently teaches that the end does NOT justify the means.

As I said earlier, it seems like there is a lot of fuzzy thinking out there.

 

[TheLittleLady]

is it morally licit to reject Christ because “It’s under duress so it doesn’t count”?

Difference between morally licit (it is still sin) and culpable (under duress culpability is lessened or even removed all together). Our God is a God of mercy.

 

[stpurl]

So all the Christians through the ages who allowed themselves to be put to death rather than sacrifice to idols, or bow down to the Emperors’ statues, or profane the Eucharist, or renounce the faith and become Muslim, etc. etc., should have just been fine with doing all the above, because God would have had mercy on them?

How DO you feel about Christians who choose to die rather than renounce God?

 

[ShrodingersCat]

Here’s the thing though: you are implying that somehow this woman deserves canonization because she managed to get herself killed instead of being raped - the situation was entirely out of her control. Lots of women fight back and are unsuccessful. If she had fought back and was unsuccessful and was then murdered, would we be having this conversation?

Way too much emphasis is being put on the fact that she wasn’t raped when really she had little choice in the matter.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Again, there is a very long way to “not culpable or lesser culpability” and disrespect for martyrs, but, thanks for playing!

 

[stpurl]

NO, I am doing nothing of the kind. In fact if you check through my posts you will see I said exactly what you just did --that women can fight back and lose, as well as fight back and win; it depends a lot on the situation including the rapist himself.

I am saying that from the article (which I read in its entirety) which talks about not just the incident but about the young girl and her actions and life up to the incident, she appeared to have a strong, vital faith, and a clear vision of both her own purity AND the fact that rape would be a mortal sin for the man involved. She was trying to protect BOTH of these things.

Way too much emphasis is being placed on a false reading of her intentions as well as a skewed understanding of Catholic teachings.