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

[opop]

Please clarify the above statement you made in light of what I said about victims in fear of their own life or that of a family member when their abuser threatened to harm them.

As I said there are two kinds of things that must be distinguished:

1. Sometimes, the woman, in order to save her life, actively engages in sex with the rapist. This is not the most common case of course, but it can happen when the rapist asks for it under threat of death, and is not satisfied with a pure passivity from the part of the woman (for example, he can say “give me a blwjb or I kill your family”). In this case it is a sin, because consenting to actively engage in sex outside of wedlock is always a sin, even under threat of death. As I said, I speak only from an objective point of view. I don’t judge the personal guilt of anyone in this situation.
2. The more common thing is that the woman doesn’t consent to the act and doesn’t actively engages in it, but doesn’t resist either, in order to save her life or the life of her family. In this case there is no sin.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I would note that there are actually Catholic female saints who were raped, such as St. Teneu and St. Wulfrida.

I believe after St. Teneu was raped, her family was disgraced and tried to kill her and the resulting baby. She was saved by monks.

I am also willing to bet that there are a lot of female martyrs of the modern era who were raped before being killed, particularly in wartime situations, but the Church just doesn’t speak too loudly about it, likely because until relatively recent times rape was one of those subjects people did not talk about.

 

[Xantippe]

I am also willing to bet that there are a lot of female martyrs of the modern era who were raped before being killed, particularly in wartime situations, but the Church just doesn’t speak too loudly about it, likely because until relatively recent times rape was one of those subjects people did not talk about.

Right.

Augustine seems to have been very aware of those facts of life.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

It’s not really consent under that level of threat

 

[opop]

how can a woman not actively engage or and not actively resist giving forced oral sex? If she’s not engaging in it, it’s not happening. If she is engaging in it, forcibly, she’s sinning?

It is indeed very unlikely that this precise act happens without the woman consenting to actively engage in it. Except if the rapist put her on drugs or something like that, so he can control her mind. Otherwise, if she consents, it’s a sin (I mean in itself it’s a sin, it doesn’t necessarily mean she is personally guilty, as I already said, because there are obvious possible extenuating circumstances).
The passive resistance is more easily applied with other kinds of acts (which are more commons in case of rape).

You must understand that it is never justified to consent to an intrinsically evil act, even under threat of death. That is also why it was considered a sin for Christians to renounce their faith during the persecutions in Rome. Even if it was to avoid the lions, it was considered a grave sin.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Augustine seems to have been very aware of those facts of life.

He got around a lot.

 

[JimG]

You must understand that it is never justified to consent to an intrinsically evil act, even under threat of death. That is also why it was considered a sin for Christians to renounce their faith during the persecutions in Rome. Even if it was to avoid the lions, it was considered a grave sin.

Some of those Christians who gave in and consented to toss a pinch of incense to the emperor’s statue as to a god would argue that it was essentially a meaningless act. Nobody, not even the Romans, really believed that the emperor was a god, and in tossing the incense, they gave no internal consent. Refusal was of course, a heroic act. Whether the Christians who did toss the incense really intended to renounce Christ might be questionable.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

We can compare with murder. If a man says “If you don’t kill this boy, I will kill you”, and you kill the boy, are you innocent? Sur, there was a constraint on you, and you only wanted to save your life. But that doesn’t mean you were justified in killing the boy. Murder and sex outside wedlock are intrinsically evil acts, and that is why you don’t have the right to consent to them, even under threat of death.

You can’t compare forced sex to forced murder. Killing a fellow human is inherently evil, while sex is a neutral act. The morality of a sexual act is entirely dependent on context, so you can’t say that a “non-passive” rape victim is committing an objective sin.

 

[Lea101]

Killing a fellow human is inherently evil, while sex is a neutral act. The morality of a sexual act is entirely dependent on context, so you can’t say that a “non-passive” rape victim is committing an objective sin.

Exactly. Plus under the threat of death, her culpability will obviously be different. It might not even be a mortal sin, assuming that it’s considered a sin in the first place

 

[opop]

Killing a fellow human is inherently evil, while sex is a neutral act. The morality of a sexual act is entirely dependent on context,

The morality of killing someone also depends on context. Legitimate self-defence is moral. So your distinction between killing and sex doesn’t work. Just as killing outside self-defence is intrinsically wrong, sex outside wedlock is intrinsically wrong. That’s why you can’t consent to neither of them, even under threat of death.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I think in general we see consent as a more complex issue these days and not just sexual consent but also things like consenting to medical treatment.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

The morality of killing someone also depends on context. Legitimate self-defence is moral. So your distinction between killing and sex doesn’t work. Just as killing outside self-defence is intrinsically wrong, sex outside wedlock is intrinsically wrong. That’s why you can’t consent to neither of both, even under threat of death.

Killing in self-defense isn’t moral so much as it is a “necessary evil.” There’s also the issue of what’s at stake in these “Sophie’s Choice” scenarios. In the murder example, you’re pitting two things of equal value against one another. With the rape scenario, however, it’s the choice between a human life and an intact hymen. Guess which one I assign more value to.

 

[Xantippe]

I think in general we see consent as a more complex issue these days and not just sexual consent but also things like consenting to medical treatment.

I believe even traditional moral theology is pretty nuanced about what full consent of the will means.

 

[opop]

I believe even traditional moral theology is pretty nuanced about what full consent of the will means.

That’s why I said I don’t judge the personal guilt of anyone. I only speak about objective sin, not subjective sin.

 

[Xantippe]

I only speak about objective sin, not subjective sin.

Not a moral theologian, but I don’t think that that’s a distinction that exists in Catholic moral theology.

 

[opop]

Killing in self-defense isn’t moral so much as it is a “necessary evil.”

You are playing with words. Killing in self-defence is not a sin (it’s sometimes even a duty), therefore it’s moral. Point. That’s all I’m saying.

With the rape scenario, however, it’s the choice between a human life and an intact hymen. Guess which one I assign more value to.

No one cares about hymens here. The problem is the same if the victim is a man or a mother. The fact is that you are never justified in committing a sin in order to save your life, note even a little venial sin (yes, you heard me, not even a venial sin).

 

[Xantippe]

No one cares about hymens here. The problem is the same if the victim is a man or a mother. The fact is that you are never justified in committing a sin in order to save your life, note even a little venial sin (yes, you heard me, not even a venial sin).

You’re begging the question–namely, is it a sin?

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Killing in self-defence is not a sin (it’s sometimes even a duty), therefore it’s moral.

If killing someone in self-defense can be considered moral, then why can’t we apply the same logic to “sacrificing one’s purity” or whatever to save our lives? How come it’s moral to snuff out human life in self-defense, but not to “allow” yourself to be violated in self-defense?

 

[Nigel7]

The fact is that you are never justified in committing a sin in order to save your life, note even a little venial sin (yes, you heard me, not even a venial sin).

So if, for example, someone had a gun to my head and said that I’d be shot unless I uttered a naughty word then I should not say a naughty word to save my life and rather opt for being murdered since saying the naughty word constitutes a venial sin?

That’s just silly!

 

[OsculeturMeOsculo]

That does sound kind of right.