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

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TheAmazingGrace said:
It’s not required of us for the same reason resisting an armed robber isn’t required of us: it’s not a smart idea.
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The same applies to most martyrs. Acceding to Henry VIII’s demand for recognition as head of the Catholic Church in England seemed less foolish than being beheaded for not signing a piece of paper. Most bishops went along with it. Only John Fisher and Thomas More lost their heads over the matter. As a professor once said of them ““They were martyrs because they were saints, not saints because they were martyrs.”
 
JimG said:
The same applies to most martyrs. Acceding to Henry VIII’s demand for recognition as head of the Catholic Church in England seemed less foolish than being beheaded for not signing a piece of paper. Most bishops went along with it. Only John Fisher and Thomas More lost their heads over the matter. As a professor once said of them ““They were martyrs because they were saints, not saints because they were martyrs.”
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Dying for your faith is a different can of worms than dying to preserve your physical virginity.
 
I can’t read their minds but I do think that these women died for their Faith.
 
Elizabeth3 said:
She was canonized because she was a martyr. What did she die in defense of?
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A martyr is someone who dies because they won’t give up their faith (hence why Joan of Arc isn’t considered a “martyr” in the technical sense). The way Anna’s story is framed, she died for the sake of not having sex.
 
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TheAmazingGrace said:
A martyr is someone who dies because they won’t give up their faith.
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Back to the Catholic Dictionary

Martyr - A person who chooses to suffer, even to die, rather than renounce his or her faith or Christian principles. After the example of Christ one does not resist one’s persecutors when they use violence out of hatred or malice against Christ, or his Church, or some revealed truth of the Catholic religion. (Etym. Greek martyros, witness, martyr.)
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
It’s not a Christian principle to refuse a rapist when you’re under threat of death.
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But Anna perhaps believed it was and/or was horrified by the idea. (There are more than a few young girls who are freaked out by the idea of sexual intercourse.)
 
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Do you really think this is about her refusal? She could have refused and he could have still raped her and she still should be beatified. If not, I question what the Church teaches here.
 
This isn’t about sexual virtue, though. If she had been raped, she’d be no less pure, and the fact that she wasn’t doesn’t make her assailant any less guilty.
 
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Bruised_Reed said:
Do you really think this is about her refusal? She could have refused and he could have still raped her and she still should be beatified. If not, I question what the Church teaches here.
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In comment 75, I shared what the Church said and I will also share here what St. Pope John Paul II said. If you question it and don’t understand it, then seek answers.

St. Pope John Paul II said

“She did not flee from the voice of the Holy Spirit, from the voice of her conscience. She rather chose death. Through the gift of fortitude the Holy Spirit helped her to 'judge”- and to choose with her young spirit. She chose death when there was no other way to defend her virginal purity. Maria Goretti’s blood, shed in a sacrifice of total fidelity to God, reminds us that we are also called to offer ourselves to the Father. We are called to fulfill the divine will in order to be found holy and pleasing in His sight. Our call to holiness, which is the vocation of every baptized person, is encouraged by the example of this young martyr.
Look at her especially, adolescents and young people. Like her, be capable of defending your purity of heart and body; be committed to the struggle against evil and sin, nourishing your communion with the Lord through prayer, the daily practice of mortification, and scrupulously observing the commandments. Do not be afraid to take a counter-cultural stance, to reject the world’s idols when it is a question of courageously witnessing by your lives that you belong to a chaste and poor Christ. Always esteem and love purity and virginity.

"In her silent heroism, Maria Goretti is a teacher of truth, consistency, and true love. She teaches us to rediscover in Christ the value of the truth which frees the human being from the slavery to material realities, to cultivate a taste for authentic beauty and the good which overcomes evil.

“Today, we thank the Blessed Trinity for this young life, and for the martyrdom which crowned it. Through her life and heroic death, the Son of man was glorified at the beginning of our century. ‘Blessed be God in His Saints’.” (L’Osservatore Romano- English ed., 10/7/91)
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
Um, purity is not the same as virginity
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Virginity, if you mean bodily integrity, is violated by rape. The virtue of chastity or purity, that is intended and willed by the person to maintain is also violated by rape. Bodily integrity implies the virtue of purity/chastity.
 
You might not intend your comment to come across this way, but it’s basically victim blaming. If there was no willing participation, then there was no violation of chastity.
 
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