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

[OsculeturMeOsculo]

Perhaps instead of arguing we can celebrate this Saint’s upcoming Beatification. This seems to be the more noble thing to do than fight.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

Not going to sit back and say/do nothing when erroneous ideas are put forth, whether they are our of ignorance or malice. Just the title of the thread gets it wrong and there is a persistent idea that a victim of rape sins somehow. It’s borderline on this thread but there have been posts suggesting that a victim of rape is complicit somehow because the rape would not have occurred without her “consent”. The reason for St. Maria Goretti’s sainthood gets twisted and it appears that this young woman’s story will too, her virtuous life prior go her death ignored.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

No they are not. There is no sin.

 

[OsculeturMeOsculo]

I didn’t say that.

 

[Xantippe]

Just the title of the thread gets it wrong

Exactly.

There’s an idea that it’s possible to avoid rape through sheer force of will, and that’s not true at all, except perhaps through illicit means like suicide.

Edited to add: Bruised Reed is quite correct to criticize the title. The title is says, “16-Year-Old Girl Was Shot By Soldier She Would Not Let Rape Her.”

Again, that’s the avoiding-rape-through-sheer-force-of-will theory, which does not have a lot of relevance to the real world. Under slightly different circumstances but with exactly the same actions on her part, she could have been raped or raped AND murdered–she was not the person deciding which of the three options it was going to be. (There’s a fourth possibility, namely he could have let her go–but again, that was not under her control.)

The sheer-force-of-will view is a very, very dangerous one to communicate to young people, as it gives young women a false sense of security and it persuades young men that they could not possibly be committing rape, as there’s a magic bubble of protection surrounding young women who do not wish to have sex.

I can’t say enough against this view.

 

[JulianN]

As long as we’re clear that being raped would not be the victim “disappointing God.”

 

[Bruised_Reed]

That’s what the other poster suggested and you said that sounds right :woman_shrugging:t4:

 

[Elizabeth3]

If there was no willing participation, then there was no violation of chastity.

I’m really trying here to try to see how you are viewing this in that you can say there was no violation of chastity.

In order for you to say there is no violation (or offense) against a person’s chastity in the case of rape, it seems you would have to believe that I mean that the victim commits the violation if she is raped or if she doesn’t fight against it. If that is what you are understanding me to say, then you are not understanding what I’m saying or what the Church means when she declares that these virgins were martyred in defense of chastity. If something can be defended, then that must mean there is a violation that can be defended against. Again, the violation is not on the part of the victim, they are the defender. The rapist is the violator.

---

We already both agree that the victim’s body is violated if they are raped.

We always say that rape is against the person’s will.

If someone does something to a person against their will, they have violated that person’s will. (or we can say they are committing an offense against the person’s will).

Every person has a right to the free will that has been granted to them by God.

Your free will has a power.

This power is “to determine itself and to act of itself, without compulsion from within or coercion from without.”

A person who possesses the virtue of chastity, has that virtue because they chose it freely with their will and exercises it habitually because of their good character.

Because they chose it freely with their will, they also have the right that their chastity be reverenced (shown honor and respect).

A person’s virginity, which consists of both honor/respect for their own bodily integrity and their moral choice to not consent to sex, suggests that the person possesses the virtue of chastity.

If a rapist rapes a person against their will, they have violated (committed an offense against, sinned against, disregarded, failed to show proper respect for), not only the person’s body but also their chastity if the person possesses it by the intent of their will.

The person does not lose their virginity nor the possession of the virtue of chastity they may have obtained by the intent of their free will and the habits of character in which they exercise the virtue.

Continued next comment…

 

[Elizabeth3]

Continued…

The virgin martyrs of the Church were found to (1) possess the virtue of chastity (2) because they have been enlightened by their faith that God will’s it and that it is good, and (3) are motivated by their fidelity to Christ and their love of God to so highly reverence their bodily integrity to a heroic degree that they chose to die in defense against it’s violation.

The fact that these elements are found in the virgin martyrs, should in no way offend other rape victims.

It is true that one has to actually possess the virtue of chastity in order to choose to die in defense of it but that doesn’t mean to not possess the virtue of chastity makes it any less a violation against a woman’s will to not consent to sex for whatever her reasons may be for not willing it.

It is true that some women haven’t been enlightened by their faith or any faith that chastity is God’s will and that it is good because God only wills what is good. That doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to not be raped if they only believe it is a violation of a human right that may or may not have been granted by a creator or if they believe man has determined these rights for themselves.

It is true that some women are motivated by fidelity to Christ and love of God in their intent to remain chaste but that doesn’t mean that if they don’t choose to die in defense of chastity against the violation of their body or their will to be chaste, that they have lost their salvation, have sinned for not doing so or that they don’t really love God. They have chosen to live because they see that their life has value and it is a good to desire to preserve it.

If this doesn’t help you and others to understand what is being said and not said by the Church when she declares certain women virgin martyrs, then there is really nothing else I can do other than to say you should pray about it and ask for understanding because you believe that the Church is good, is lead by the Holy Spirit and would not ever say that if a rape victim doesn’t fight to the death to defend herself against violation of her will or intent to be chaste or of the violation of their body, that they have sinned.

 

[Elizabeth3]

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.

Thank you pensmama87. There’s a reason some people need a Master’s in Theology in order to even begin to understand what exactly is and isn’t being said by the Church in her statements. For us common folk, it’s really, really hard to puzzle out. I’m not unsympathetic to those who misunderstand because I used to struggle to understand it myself but I really tried to figure out what the Church means so it was a lot of consulting the Summa, Augustine, the Catholic Dictionary, the Catholic Encyclopedia and other writings to cobble together my own understanding and that is what I’m trying to convey here about the virgin martyrs.

Part of the problem is the human need or desire to try to derive what is meant by the praise of one group in relation to another group who hasn’t been declared saints but share victim-hood in common. The praise of the virtue of the saints doesn’t necessarily follow that those who aren’t saints aren’t worthy of their human dignity in terms of their shared victim-hood or have somehow fallen short of their dignity if they were successfully overpowered and raped or chose to not fight due to the threat of their life if they do.

PS- I knew what you were saying and didn’t take it as a backhanded compliment.

 

[opop]

namely, is it a sin?

What it? If what is a sin?

 

[Elizabeth3]

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

I’m so glad you found this. I was trying to search yesterday to see if there were any women who had been raped and yet it didn’t exclude them from being named saints, but I had no luck.

 

[opop]

How come it’s moral to snuff out human life in self-defense, but not to “allow” yourself to be violated in self-defense?

“To be violated in self-defense” doesn’t make any sense. I bet St Alphonsus Liguori
is turning in his grave right now if he read you.
However, as I already said many times, it is perfectly legitimate to “allow” yourself to be violated, if by that you mean to not actively resist, and only tolerate the evil act without actively engaging in it. For example, if a woman remains without moving, waiting for the rapist to finish, she’s not doing anything wrong.

However, what is wrong is when the victim actively engage in the sexual act. The fact that it is to save her life doesn’t justfy her. I take again the example I gave above: If the rapist says something like “Give me a bl.j.b or I kill your family”, and the victim gives it to him, then she’s doing something wrong, even if it’s to save her family. The end doesn’t justify the means.

Now, if we go back to the original subject, you may ask: Why is this girl beatified for having not tolerated rape, if she tolerated murder? If it is moral to passively tolerate rape, would it not have been wiser to choose this option rather than tolerating murder? The answer, I think, is that she didn’t choose to tolerate murder. From what I read, it seems that she actively sought to avoid both rape and murder. However, I am of course not a connoisseur of this story, so I can’t be sure.

 

[Xantippe]

I’m so glad you found this. I was trying to search yesterday to see if there were any women who had been raped and yet it didn’t exclude them from being named saints, but I had no luck.

Realistically speaking, there had to have been some among the early Christian martyrs.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

There was a past CAF thread on this topic that came up on Google and had St. Wulfrida. I stumbled upon St. Teneu myself a few months ago. Her illegitimate son from the rape grew up to be St. Kentigern aka St. Mungo, patron of Glasgow.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Realistically speaking, there had to have been some among the early Christian martyrs.

I am sure there have been lots of them all throughout history, probably included in those groups like The 30 Holy Martyrs of Such and Such Town in the Middle of Some War.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

St. David’s mother St. Nonna (aka Non or Nonnita) is another saint who was abducted, raped and ended up pregnant with him. Seems like abducting and raping maidens was a popular pastime in the British Isles back in old tymes.

 

[NJada]

Thanks for sharing this.
May Blessed Anna pray for us!

I didn’t read all the comments here, but I can kind of see why it’s unnecessarily complicated to our modern thinking. I hope I’m understanding it.
Some of the quotes I noticed that seem relevant to me:

From the Dawn Eden article (thanks to whoever posted it):
"Virginity is founded upon <<the constant will>> to remain a virgin. Therefore, virgins who have suffered rape are not merely “secondary virgins” in the eyes of the Church; they are true virgins. Aquinas says, “Even supposing that one thus violated should conceive, she would not for that reason forfeit her virginity” (Summa Theologiae, Suppl., q. 96, a. 5, ad 4)."

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.”

^ (emphasis mine)

Martyr - A person who chooses to suffer, even to die, rather than renounce his or her faith or Christian principles.

 

[Xantippe]

It is true that some women are motivated by fidelity to Christ and love of God in their intent to remain chaste but that doesn’t mean that if they don’t choose to die in defense of chastity against the violation of their body or their will to be chaste, that they have lost their salvation, have sinned for not doing so or that they don’t really love God. They have chosen to live because they see that their life has value and it is a good to desire to preserve it.

A lot of your big wall o’theology sounds reasonable, but I have to quibble with the idea that they are choosing to die. That makes it sound like suicide or assisted suicide. Plus, I don’t think that either Anna or Maria was clearly choosing death so much as risking death by choosing not to cooperate. We’re not allowed to kill ourselves or tell others to kill us, even for good ends (like avoiding rape).

(I realize that certain authoritative authors have talked about “choosing” death, but I think it’s a lapse in their moral theology.)

And again, it’s just luck of the draw that these particular would-be rapists chose to commit murder rather than continuing with rape, which would very likely have been successful, no matter what the girls did. Alessandro, for example, would have many, many opportunities to find Maria alone and vulnerable, as they lived under the same roof. This was not the only shot he had at this.

The praise of the virtue of the saints doesn’t necessarily follow that those who aren’t saints aren’t worthy of their human dignity in terms of their shared victim-hood or have somehow fallen short of their dignity if they were successfully overpowered and raped or chose to not fight due to the threat of their life if they do.

To me, the results seem pretty random. Alessandro could just as easily have overpowered Maria, under different circumstances. (I personally suspect that Alessandro was not all there–with a little bit more savvy, he could have raped Maria, persuaded everybody she was a liar and/or a thief and gotten his dad to evict her family.)

 

[Elizabeth3]

your big wall o’theology

lol. I am very wordy. Just ask my husband and kids. I do know it was a lot but I think that sometimes all the details need to be spelled out in order to help understanding. For example- For virgin martyrs they are said to have died “in defense of chastity.” Most people see that phrase and think “That’s dumb. How can you defend your chastity if you can’t lose it if you didn’t will it?” …and then that line of thinking makes people think the Church is a little nuts or requires women to fight to the death to avoid rape when it’s unnecessary. (because they hate women or don’t value them. blah, blah, blah).

But if you spell it out and say that the Church says they died in defense of chastity because they willed to not be violated due to their heroic reverence for their bodily integrity and their fidelity to and love of God, then it makes more sense or at least as much as we can understand it without possessing the grace that would prompt it.

The Church just uses the shorter, more precise phrase in documents it seems for obvious reasons. Even with the shorthand documents end up being big walls o’theology.

Plus, I don’t think that either Anna or Maria was clearly choosing death so much as risking death by choosing not to cooperate.

Well, you are looking at it from a purely natural or ordinary sense. These martyrs were given, at the right time, a supernatural grace to have the courage to choose what they chose. They were persons who reached high degrees of holiness and practiced the virtues with ease and this made their souls “ripe” so to speak to be able to cooperate with the particular supernatural grace of martyrdom that God willed to give them at the right time. This is why it’s so hard for our natural minds to grasp when we don’t have this grace at the moment.

I think the Church is confidently able to say “choosing” death because it’s this supernatural grace that gives them the courage (fortitude) to choose the unthinkable to our natural minds.

From an article on the grace of martyrdom

“God’s grace, this Divine light, penetrated their souls and hearts and, as it were, began to shine forth from within them, thereby rendering them capable of bravery beyond nature. God’s grace gave them the strength to endure that which exceeds the capabilities of not only the ordinary person, but even of an especially strong spirit and, as we have just said, of a person of strong will. It is namely God’s grace that makes us capable of performing that which is beyond nature.”