News Report: "Young Slovak martyr will be beatified." 16-Year-Old Girl Was Shot By Soldier She Would Not Let Rape Her

[Xantippe]

Don’t you believe there are degrees of love and that someone can go beyond what is required by ordinary virtue to show that love to somone? In this case, God?

Another nuance is that in both the Slovak case and Maria Goretti, both girls had reason to believe there might be retaliation against their families. The Russian soldier could have harmed other people in the Slovak girl’s family (either through violence or trumping up some sort of charge against them) and Maria Goretti’s widowed mother was dependent on the Alessandro’s father’s goodwill for a home and a job. Had Alessandro played his cards differently, he could have had the entire fatherless family put out on the street–a fact that Maria Goretti was no doubt painfully aware of.

So, there might be a conflict between love of family and love of God–these girls’ resistance had the potential to endanger their families.

 

[Elizabeth3]

For the perpetrator’s salvation.

Allessandro did end up repenting, due to Maria’s forgiveness.

The beatification isn’t because the saint was able to prevent the perpetrator from endangering his salvation, although in Maria’s case, she did show concern for Allessandro’s both before and after the incident that took her life.

The Church doesn’t seem to be looking at the situation though as a choice between preventing one sin or the other. The Church is simply honoring the choice of the saint to die in defense of a particular virtue. The saint wasn’t consenting to murder outright. It was a consequence of her defense of chastity for love of God.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Allessandro did end up repenting, due to Maria’s forgiveness.

Well, we don’t know that her resistance/death was necessary for that. Any number of alternate scenarios could have played out had he succeeded in raping her.

 

[Xantippe]

I have to add that it’s not necessarily pure, abstract love of chastity/love of God going on in a young girl refusing an unwanted sexual overture.

There could be other ingredients to refusal:

–virginal disgust/fear of sex
–fear of pregnancy
–fear of harm to reputation/social penalty for not being a virgin (especially in Maria Goretti’s Italy).

All of these things are very natural and not at all culpable, but it’s important to bear in mind that they are in play. The last one, especially, shouldn’t get our support. Note that in Elizabeth3’s very interesting quote, the theologian said, “A woman being ravished must offer internal resistance absolutely, in not consenting with the will; and such external resistance as is possible without endangering her life or reputation.”

It’s very insightful that the theologian recognized that active resistance might be more of a risk to a woman’s reputation than not actively resisting (see, for example Harvey Weinstein, or any situation where a girl or woman’s concern for not looking undignified, immodest or unchaste in front of others might keep her from trying to get help).

That’s an area where we third parties (parents, teachers, priests, etc.) have an obligation not to prefer appearance over reality, and to make it clear to those in our charge that we value chastity over the appearance of chastity.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Well, we don’t know that her resistance/death was necessary for that. Any number of alternate scenarios could have played out had he succeeded in raping her.

I didn’t say it was due to her resistance/death. I said it was due to her forgiveness I could also add that she appeared to him in a dream afterwards saying she wanted him in heaven.

 

[Elizabeth3]

So, there might be a conflict between love of family and love of God–these girls’ resistance had the potential to endanger their families.

Aren’t we supposed to love God first, above all things? Isn’t it victim blaming to say they had a part in endangering their families when the threat was coming from the perpetrators?

 

[Xantippe]

Aren’t we supposed to love God first, above all things? Isn’t it victim blaming to say they had a part in endangering their families when the threat was coming from the perpetrators?

No, I’m just pointing out the calculus in this sort of situation, and that the desire to protect one’s family might be in conflict with chastity/desire to protect one’s virginity.

Had things gone a little differently (had Alessandro been just a bit more cunning/evil rather than just brutal), Maria Goretti’s family could have been literally starving on the street because she said no to Alessandro.

From the Wikipedia article on Maria Goretti:

"Maria Teresa Goretti was born on October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, in the Province of Ancona, then in the Kingdom of Italy, to Luigi Goretti and Assunta née Carlini, the third of seven children: Antonio (who died in infancy), Angelo, Maria, Mariano (Marino), Alessandro (Sandrino), Ersilia, and Teresa.

“By the time Maria was five, her family had become so poor that they were forced to give up their farm, move, and work for other farmers. In 1896, they moved to Colle Gianturco, near Paliano and Frosinone, about fifty miles outside Rome; and then in 1899 to Le Ferriere, near modern Latina and Nettuno in Lazio, where they lived in a building, “La Cascina Antica,” they shared with another family which included Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro. Soon, her father became very sick with malaria, and died when she was just nine. While her mother and siblings worked in the fields, she would cook, sew, watch Teresa, and keep the house clean.”

Economically speaking, Maria’s large fatherless family was dependent on the goodwill of the Serenellis and extremely vulnerable.

Edited to add: This is a data point for something DarkLight and I were talking about in the huge MeToo thread, that historically, girls and women from poor families have been especially vulnerable to sexual harassment, abuse and rape. Their families, even if they were eager to do so, were often simply unable to effectively protect them.

 

[Elizabeth3]

I don’t believe a mature person who thinks “this isn’t worth losing my life over” is any less virtuous than a naive kid who thinks “if I don’t resist, someone’s going to hell.”

I don’t think their thought was quite “if I don’t resist, somone’s going to hell.” I think it was more along the line of putting love of God first. I know these things are hard to wrap our heads around but I think this Scripture verse gets close to explaining that what seems like foolishness is not.

The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor 2:14

We have to also remember that saints who die for the sake of some virtue, had extraordinary graces from God to be able to make such a decision. Their souls were open to cooperate with that grace in that moment to choose the unthinkable out of love for God. Not all of us will be called on that way nor will we be given that degree of grace in that moment. We can’t really know the Divine Will and why He might move a particular person through the promptings of grace to that degree of heroic virtue. Perhaps they are ,as the Church says, shining examples of the goodness of the particular virtues they chose to defend with their life so that the rest of us will be motivated to take seriously these virtues even in the ordinary way and be careful not to fall into sin.

 

[Elizabeth3]

No, I’m just pointing out the calculus in this sort of situation, and that the desire to protect one’s family might be in conflict with chastity/desire to protect one’s virginity.

Had things gone a little differently (had Alessandro been just a bit more cunning/evil rather than just brutal), Maria Goretti’s family could have been literally starving on the street because she said no to Alessandro.

Ok. That makes sense. I thought you were saying she should have chosen to not resist for the sake of her family.

 

[Xantippe]

I thought you were saying she should have chosen to not resist for the sake of her family.

Nah, just that the dilemma was a very difficult one. Alessandro also could have turned to some other girl in the family. One often hears of children in abusive situations choosing to “save” their siblings. One of the girls in a really terrible situation in my extended family would apparently do that–switch places with a younger sibling to keep her from being alone with the abusive family member. (Not that that’s necessarily effective or tip top moral theology, but that children may believe that they are protecting their younger siblings from abuse by submitting to abuse.)

Likewise, in the Russian soldier example, he could have killed everybody in the girl’s family or raped someone else in her family. Or, alternately, he could have turned them in to the authorities for some sort of made-up crime and everyone in the family could have faced torture and either execution or prison. (Vindictive denunciations were a serious hazard during the Stalin era.)

These are situations with many horrible possibilities.

 

[Elizabeth3]

One of the girls in a really terrible situation in my extended family would apparently do that–switch places with a younger sibling to keep her from being alone with the abusive family member. (Not that that’s necessarily effective or tip top moral theology, but that children may believe that they are protecting their younger siblings from abuse by submitting to abuse.)

Exactly. It may not meet the requirement of being theologically correct on all points but as an act of love for another and sacrificing yourself in their stead, it does fall in line with “…there is no greater love, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

 

[paperwight]

I didn’t say it was due to her resistance/death. I said it was due to her forgiveness I could also add that she appeared to him in a dream afterwards saying she wanted him in heaven.

Hmm, well, dreams are funny things, aren’t they. I wouldn’t attach much weight to any dream, personally, as there is such a thing as ‘wish fulfillment’. In other words, his crime preyed on his mind and his unconscious looked for a way to feel happier about the situation.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Hmm, well, dreams are funny things, aren’t they. I wouldn’t attach much weight to any dream, personally, as there is such a thing as ‘wish fulfillment’. In other words, his crime preyed on his mind and his unconscious looked for a way to feel happier about the situation.

We’ll never know for sure whether he did receive a visit from her in a dream or whether it was conjured up by his own mind. What we do know is that she did verbally forgive him before she died and he knew it. We also know that from that day he had the dream, he changed and was determined to make reparation for his sins. He became a model prisoner, sought forgiveness from Maria’s mother after he got out, went to Church with her to receive communion with her and they took him in as part of their family. He also testified on Maria’s behalf for her cause for canonization. So while you wouldn’t attach much weight to any dream, in his case it was the impetus to make a change in his life which resulted in him receiving forgiveness from the Church. It resulted in more than just him feeling happier about the situation.

 

[Melodeonist]

I don’t see what the problem could be. Martyrdom is a free ticket to heaven. All of us could hope to be martyrs because it’s hard enough trying to avoid sin.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

I don’t see what the problem could be. Martyrdom is a free ticket to heaven. All of us could hope to be martyrs because it’s hard enough trying to avoid sin.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t see what the problem could be. Martyrdom is a free ticket to heaven. All of us could hope to be martyrs because it’s hard enough trying to avoid sin.

Why don’t we all get plane tickets to Syria or Iraq, then?

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Why don’t we all get plane tickets to Syria or Iraq, then?

Or North Korea. They’ll martyr you real slow, so you can get them extra graces, lol.

 

[Xantippe]

There’s a famous quote from Flannery O’Connor, the great 20th century Catholic Southern writer, where she talks about how a young character in her story, "would have to be a saint because that was the occupation that included everything you could know; and yet she knew she would never be a saint… but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

 

[Elizabeth3]

All of us could hope to be martyrs because it’s hard enough trying to avoid sin.

Why don’t we all get plane tickets to Syria or Iraq, then?

Let’s be fair here. He’s not saying we should deliberately put ourselves in harms way for the chance to be a martyr. He’s saying that considering that it’s a “free ticket to heaven” we could all hope to get the grace to die that kind of death instead of the continual struggle and slog against sin, the falling and repenting and falling again, until we die in a state of grace. In a certain sense, it would be easier to have that one moment of extraordinary grace and then find yourself in Paradise.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Desiring martyrdom as a “free ticket to Heaven” doesn’t exactly ring of sanctity.