Charity vs. Chastity: What Should She Do?

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paradoxy

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Consider the following scenario:

A young man breaks a relatively silly law (he has not hurt anyone) under a tyrannical regime and is to be executed. His sister, a novice nun who has not taken her vows yet, pleads for him. She is told by the officer of the law that her brother’s life will be spared if she has sex with the officer. Her brother is unwilling to die for her virtue and begs her to save his life.

What should she do?

An added twist: The officer’s ex-fiancee, whom he ditched after having had sex with her, agrees to take the sister’s place in the dark room, because she is in love with him and wants him back.

[This is not really a completely real situation (and this has in fact happened in history), nor is it a fully hypothetical one, made up by me just for the heck of it. Whoever guesses where the dilemma comes from, wins 10 points! 😃 ]

And, quite seriously, I’d love your opinions on this!!!
 
Send the ex-fiance back disguised as the nun? Lol. When did this happen in history? Sounds really interesting.
 
A Catholic cannot do evil so that good may result in this fashion.

To do so is to betray a lack of faith in God’s providence and a lack of trust in God. Everything that happens is permitted by God, and is for His purposes, and can be turned to our spiritual, if not physical, good.
 
Answer to the first question: We are forbidden to do evil in hopes of obtaining good. She must refuse.
Answer to the twist: We are forbidden to do evil in hopes of obtaining good.

However, if the ex-fiancee is acting on her own behalf, I’m uncertain whether the sister is obligated to forcibly stop her. Certainly the sister is forbidden to do anything to actively help the ex-fiancee with such a plan.

I’m not sure where the line is to be drawn, in the case of the twist.
 
paradoxy said:
Consider the following scenario:

A young man breaks a relatively silly law (he has not hurt anyone) under a tyrannical regime and is to be executed. His sister, a novice nun who has not taken her vows yet, pleads for him. She is told by the officer of the law that her brother’s life will be spared if she has sex with the officer. Her brother is unwilling to die for her virtue and begs her to save his life.

What should she do?

An added twist: The officer’s ex-fiancee, whom he ditched after having had sex with her, agrees to take the sister’s place in the dark room, because she is in love with him and wants him back.

[This is not really a completely real situation (and this has in fact happened in history), nor is it a fully hypothetical one, made up by me just for the heck of it. Whoever guesses where the dilemma comes from, wins 10 points! 😃 ]

And, quite seriously, I’d love your opinions on this!!!
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Have the brother take last rites before he dies. I know that sounds cold but I don’t see any reason to fear death-pain yes, death no.

The brother must be pretty cowardly to ask his sister to break her vows anyway.

I don’t see how sending the ex fiance in disguise as the nun will help anything but make the officer even angrier.

Is it from Shakespere?
 
mediatrixx said:
Send the ex-fiance back disguised as the nun? Lol. When did this happen in history? Sounds really interesting.
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Not that part… that part has another source 😃

The basic dilemma (unmarried sex in exchange for a loved one’s life) is historical.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
I’m with the one who said, Get final anointing for the brother, and say “No” to sex with the officer. After all, once the sex is over, he could still decide to execute the brother. It’s not worth it.

Also keep looking for third ways. There are always third ways, in real life - things are never as cut and dried as in hypothetical situations.
 
deb1 said:
Have the brother take last rites before he dies. I know that sounds cold but I don’t see any reason to fear death-pain yes, death no.

The brother must be pretty cowardly to ask his sister to break her vows anyway.

I don’t see how sending the ex fiance in disguise as the nun will help anything but make the officer even angrier.

Is it from Shakespere?
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Yes! 👍 5 points! 5 more if you can name the play!

Thank you for your thoughts so far.

The brother is in a state of sin and does not feel ready to die at all…
 
Shakespeare is wonderful.

Measure for Measure.

Considered one of the darker comedies-- or more mature.

You’ll notice that Isabella did NOT submit, and her brother was spared. (that law, BTW, was not exactly ‘petty’ – Claudio and Juliet should not have ‘jumped the gun’ before the wedding).
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Shakespeare is wonderful.

Measure for Measure.

Considered one of the darker comedies-- or more mature.

You’ll notice that Isabella did NOT submit, and her brother was spared. (that law, BTW, was not exactly ‘petty’ – Claudio and Juliet should not have ‘jumped the gun’ before the wedding).
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I am glad that he didn’t give an example from 'Titus Andronicus. Now that was a dark, dark play.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Shakespeare is wonderful.

Measure for Measure.

Considered one of the darker comedies-- or more mature.

You’ll notice that Isabella did NOT submit, and her brother was spared. (that law, BTW, was not exactly ‘petty’ – Claudio and Juliet should not have ‘jumped the gun’ before the wedding).
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👍 :clapping: :dancing: 10 points! 😃

She did not submit, but she did put Mariana into Angelo’s chambers, where they did have sex - having someone else sin instead could arguably be even worse.

But did Claudio deserve to be killed by the secular authorities, and with his baby on the way? And they were betrothed, which was a public Church ceremony… some do argue that they had the ‘right’ to marital relations in Renaissance times… :confused:
 
Don’t you people recognize this ‘scenario’ is just the Led Zeppelin song “Gallows Pole?” It’s off Led Zeppelin Volume 3. Am I the only one here who was a teenager in the 1970’s? :cool:
 
Gamera said:
Don’t you people recognize this ‘scenario’ is just the Led Zeppelin song “Gallows Pole?” It’s off Led Zeppelin Volume 3. Am I the only one here who was a teenager in the 1970’s? :cool:
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I wasn’t listening to Led Zeppelin - I was into Abba, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffet, the Bee Gees, and Neil Diamond. 😃
 
Gamera said:
Don’t you people recognize this ‘scenario’ is just the Led Zeppelin song “Gallows Pole?” It’s off Led Zeppelin Volume 3. Am I the only one here who was a teenager in the 1970’s? :cool:
Click to expand...
No, I did not. Although I can never tell what Led Zepplein songs are about anyway. Besides, Shakespere apparently did it first.
 
paradoxy said:
Consider the following scenario:

A young man breaks a relatively silly law (he has not hurt anyone) under a tyrannical regime and is to be executed. His sister, a novice nun who has not taken her vows yet, pleads for him. She is told by the officer of the law that her brother’s life will be spared if she has sex with the officer. Her brother is unwilling to die for her virtue and begs her to save his life.

What should she do?

An added twist: The officer’s ex-fiancee, whom he ditched after having had sex with her, agrees to take the sister’s place in the dark room, because she is in love with him and wants him back.

[This is not really a completely real situation (and this has in fact happened in history), nor is it a fully hypothetical one, made up by me just for the heck of it. Whoever guesses where the dilemma comes from, wins 10 points! 😃 ]

And, quite seriously, I’d love your opinions on this!!!
Click to expand...
You’ve been reading Measure for Measure!
 
There are many children across the world who don’t have warm clothes, or heat. I say, solve this problem by taking all of Shakespeare’s works and burning them, like the garbage they are!!! What a horrible writer!!! These stories shouldn’t be considered classic. They should be considered abominations.

Romeo and Juliet was not a love story. That was about idolatrous lustful, obsessive infatuation. It suggests that romance is the only reason we have for living. It also sends young ladies the message that there is something especially romantic about getting involved with a boy who her parents object to. It encourages rebelliousness against family, disrespect for parents(in violation of the 4th commandment) and suicide over the loss of a “lover.” If young men try the old balcony routine to try to win a young girl’s heart, they’ll get arrested for stalking. Can we try a little reality? Our schoolchildren get this garbage shoved down their throats. This is EVIL, just like the spin-offs such as The West Side Story or The Bronx Tale.

Oh, and then Macbeth and Hamlet, I get them confused. A lot of murder and unneccessary sex and violence. Satanically twisted messages that distort the concepts of good vs. evil. Why is this garbage being read in American schools hundreds of years after it was written in England. I thought we won independence? The heck with throwing tea into Boston’s harbor. Get rid of these evil books!!!

Did he write “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream?” What a stupid story. Burn it!!!

“I’m so tired. Sit you down, father. Rest you.” Or something like that. Don’t know why the Beatles put “King Leer” at the end of “I Am The Walrus,” but it really wasn’t necessary. They should have just said, “This is what your music will sound like when your brain is on drugs. You’ll be saying nonsense words like goo goo goo ga joob joo joo joowa, ooo ha ha ha everybody hoo ha.” Even those words have more intelligence than the King Leer bits. Who was King Leer, anyway? Did he do anything useful, like invent the spork or something? Or is he fictional, like the pretribulational rapture, and the Left Behind series that also need to be burned?

“That was a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar. You killed five actors…good ones!” That line in the Naked Gun is the only redeeming value of Shakespeare’s works. Actually, it really isn’t funny, now thinking about it. Five innocent people were shot and we laugh about it??? I think we need to start taking life and death a little more seriously, even in fictional movies. As for the play, itself, the Bible speaks against soothsayers. Also, is it really necessary to have five people killing one? And that annoying Antony(what a ghetto name) monologue “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears…um…and I’ll sing you a song. I’ll try not to sing out of key.” (or something like that)

As for the actual topic of the thread, sex should NEVER be used as a tool for negotiation, neither in or out of marriage. The real question is, can she pull a Judith on the guy without incurring sin? While we can clearly conclude that premarital sex is NOT acceptable to protect her brother’s life, would deception and murder be acceptable, under these circumstances? You would think the obvious answer is, “No way, Jose,” but why is Judith considered a heroine???

Speaking of heroin, was Shakespeare on heroin?

Wasn’t that a horrible movie with Claire Danes and Leonardo DeCaprio? They spoke prose as if it was dialogue. It was very poorly done.

Well, that’s my rant on this issue. I’m not interested in debating the value of Shakespeare, so don’t bother. I’ve written stories far greater than anything he’s ever written, if I say so, myself.
 
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