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:
Of the body, sure, but not of virtue.
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It would not be a violation against the victim’s chastity if it’s her intent or will to maintain it? The Church says she died in defense of chastity. How do you defend something that can’t be violated?
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
You don’t become less chaste by being a victim of rape. That’s nonsensical.
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Are we just pulling conclusions out of thin air now?

Who said that? I’m pretty sure we all agree that you can’t lose purity by being violated. That doesn’t therefore mean there wasn’t a violation against you, whether it’s to your bodily integrity or against the virtue of chastity that you intend or will to maintain.
 
I just wanted to note that there are a whole bunch of young women from different countries who were beatified after being killed for refusing rape or resisting rape. Google “related articles” brings them all up. They all seem to have led particularly holy Catholic lives prior to their death. I’m guessing that Anna may have some similar Catholic background that has not yet been reported well by our available news sources.
 
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Someone doing something to you against your will is not a violation of your personal virtue.
 
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Perhaps, but beatification and canonization require some amount of people to be praying to and venerating the person, so it is not necessarily a dissonance to those who are supporting the cause of these saints.
 
ConfusedLucy said:
I think it’s a bit of a values dissonance to many modern people
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I also wonder about the logistics. An 11-year-old has very little chance of fighting off a determined grown man–it’s just luck of the draw that Alessandro chose to stab Maria Goretti to death rather than successfully raping her.

And (awful thought!) she could have been exactly as virtuous and as resisting, survived that, and been treated like unmarriageable garbage in her community if word got out.
 
Elizabeth, I wanted to say I appreciate your contributions to this thread. I’m beginning to understand what is meant when this kind of language is used by the Church. I still think it’s kind of tone deaf, though, and is so easily misunderstood even by faithful Catholics, because it’s not in keeping with common usage. And then you get responses like above that claim not resisting is sinful, and then it’s really not helpful.

But I think - I think - I get what you’re getting at.

(I just re-read this and realized it sounds like a backhanded compliment, which is really not intentional. I’m being sincere in my appreciation. It can just be such an emotionally charged situation.)
 
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pensmama87 said:
I wanted to say I appreciate your contributions to this thread. I’m beginning to understand what is meant when this kind of language is used by the Church. I still think it’s kind of tone deaf, though, and is so easily misunderstood even by faithful Catholics, because it’s not in keeping with common usage. And then you get responses like above that claim not resisting is sinful, and then it’s really not helpful.

But I think - I think - I get what you’re getting at.
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Yes.

The long detailed that Elizabeth posted from the moral theologian upthread was very valuable and nuanced–and also completely contradicts opop. You can see from the quote that the author is working based on a bank of pastoral experience–either his own or others’.
opop said:
There can also be a kind of “middle way”, when you do not consent to the evil act, but you consent to let it happen without fighting (that is what we call tolerating evil, as when we say that God tolerates evil). For example when the victim remains without moving, waiting for the rapist to finish. In this case there is no sin.
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Well, thanks be for small mercies.
opop said:
But it is more heroic if you actually fight.
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“When a Russian soldier searched their home, Anna prepared food for him but refused sexual intercourse, even when her life was threatened. She ran to her father and brother, under gunpoint, and was soon killed by the soldier with two shots.”

Anna didn’t fight back.

I really question the idea that it is somehow a moral duty for an unarmed 16-year-girl to attempt to fight (!!!) an armed, combat-hardened soldier.

That’s frankly ridiculous.
 
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I think you didn’t read my whole message. I clearly made the difference between consenting to the act (which rarely occurs) and simply choosing to not fight, without consenting to the act (which is what often happens and is NOT a sin).
 
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I didn’t say it was a duty to fight. I precisely said it’s not a duty. Also, when I said fight I meant not necessarily physical fight, but to resist in a way or another, which is what the Slovak girl did.
 
opop said:
If a man is about to kill a boy, and you can’t save the boy without losing your own life, then you are not obliged to save his life. But if you do save his life and sacrifice your life for him, then it is more heroic.
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Here are some problems:

–Your list of sexual assault scenarios is incomplete. See Elizabeth’s previous moral theology quote for a more complete list.
–You can lose your life and not save the boy, just as you can incur serious personal harm/death and still suffer sexual assault. You’re assuming successful resistance, which is not a given. We have to account for cases where resistance would be both costly and almost certainly unsuccessful, as well as cases where the victim feels that she does not have the right to endanger her life (for example, she could be pregnant, or responsible for the care of small children or frail or disabled parents) or where she feels that resistance could endanger others. (Anna, for example, was potentially endangering her family when she ran toward her brother and father for help.)
–You’re equating saving a boy’s life at the cost of one’s life to saving one’s own physical virginity at the cost of one’s own life.
–I think you’re not realizing how much reactions in high stress situations are instinctual rather than rational. For example, there’s some research that says that freezing up can be an instinctual reaction to trauma or conflict. It’s not just fight or flight, but fight/flight/freeze.

http://www.stressstop.com/stress-tips/articles/fight-flight-or-freeze-response-to-stress.php

“The fight or flight response (in its original form) is about survival. It’s about hope. We activate it when we believe there’s a chance we can outrun or outfight our attackers. The freeze response however, gets activated when’s there’s no hope.”

“The freeze response works differently. When we’re overwhelmed by an attacker and we perceive that there is NO HOPE of surviving we tend to FREEZE.”

–I also think that you don’t understand (perhaps you’re a guy?) that there can be a non or sub-moral sense of revulsion to the idea of unwanted intercourse, perhaps existing side by side with moral qualms. Girls may feel instinctual horror and disgust at the idea, and that may drive their response as much as any thought-out moral considerations, especially when surprised. The response may be just a big visceral, instinctive NOPE!!!
–Maria Goretti is a bit different as a case, because Alessandro was pressuring her of the course of some months, so she had ample opportunity to formulate her thoughts about the situation–but of course she was 11.
 
opop said:
I think you didn’t read my whole message. I clearly made the difference between consenting to the act (which rarely occurs) and simply choosing to not fight, without consenting to the act (which is what often happens and is NOT a sin).
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opop said:
I didn’t say it was a duty to fight. I precisely said it’s not a duty. Also, when I said fight I meant not necessarily physical fight, but to resist in a way or another, which is what the Slovak girl did.
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Thank you for your clarification.

Next time, say what you mean.
 
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