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

[Elizabeth3]

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.)

Yes. That is something that could have happened but the Church just looks at what did happen. Her words, that Alessandro testified to that she said, 'No. It’s a sin. You’ll go to hell." when he attacked her is pretty remarkable because you would think that a child of 11 would either just freeze, scream, or at the very most, scream, “No, don’t.” let alone have the presence of mind to state in precise terms a Christian truth of the faith as why they desired them to stop. Heck, I don’t think I as a grown woman would think to state something like that. I’m not sure I’d be able to think much at all other than reacting with instinct.

 

[Xantippe]

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.

I’m just very uncomfortable with the language of “choosing” death, because it sounds too much like suicide, which is not morally kosher. I guess I’d prefer to say “accept death” or “risk death.”

Note that we would not like to talk about “choosing death” of a terminally ill practicing Catholic who discontinued treatment, even if it resulted in death.

That is something that could have happened but the Church just looks at what did happen. Her words, that Alessandro testified to that she said, 'No. It’s a sin. You’ll go to hell." when he attacked her is pretty remarkable because you would think that a child of 11 would either just freeze, scream, or at the very most, scream, “No, don’t.” let alone have the presence of mind to state in precise terms a Christian truth of the faith as why they desired them to stop. Heck, I don’t think I as a grown women would think to state something like that. I’m not sure I’d be able to think much at all other than reacting with instinct.

I’m not talking about Maria’s words or actions, but Alessandro’s.

Nothing that she did could have prevented a determined grown man from overpowering her. It’s just good luck or bad luck (however you look at it) that she was murdered, not raped–there’s nothing that she could have done to keep him from doing whatever he decided to do to her. She couldn’t stop him from murdering her, any more than she could have stopped him from raping her.

Again, we have to give up on the idea of a magic bubble of protection that can keep girls or women from being raped, if they just do all the right things. There is no magic bubble.

 

[opop]

Did you even read what I wrote? I said there can be sin only in the case of active cooperation from the part of the victim (which rarely occurs).

 

[Xantippe]

Did you even read what I wrote? I said there can be sin only in the case of active cooperation from the part of the victim (which rarely occurs).

That’s better.

Your first version was not very clear.

 

[Elizabeth3]

I’m just very uncomfortable with the language of “choosing” death, because it sounds too much like suicide, which is not morally kosher. I guess I’d prefer to say “accept death” or “risk death.”

Yeah, especially when it’s without the explanation or understanding of them having a supernatural grace. Without that explanation, it can make for all sorts of “myths” about what is required of Christians under ordinary grace.

As a matter of fact, I think, especially in pre-internet or even pre-television/radio/literacy eras where the common man may have learned his Catechism just from homilies and word-of-mouth from other Christians, without fully understanding the theological nuances, that that is where a lot of erroneous beliefs stemmed from which may have also been tied up with some secular notions as well, such that you would find women who were raped being treated as “damaged goods” because they “failed” to preserve their virginity. I can picture an older peasant Grandma warning her granddaughters about keeping pure so as not to be damaged and driving home the horror of being damaged to use a little fear to keep them in line and then these beliefs spread as if that is what the Church is teaching.

Look at the consecrated virgins who mistakenly thought it was their duty to commit suicide if they could in an attempt to avoid rape. It was thought that their vows made that kind of decision their obligation. Augustine had to set that error straight.

Ultimately, I’m not sure what the right wording would be because to choose does indicate an active movement of their will but to accept death seems like a passive resignation. To choose is also a translation usually from the Latin to English so who knows if Latin has a term or a few terms in which a more nuanced meaning can be conveyed that doesn’t exist in the English.

 

[mythbuster1]

A Christian’s body is God’s Holy Temple. Resisting its defilement even unto death cannot be compared to defending property.

 

[billsannie]

I want to make it clear, I’m not doubting Anna’s sanctity or that she is in heaven. That being said, in spite of all that’s being said here it looks to me like there really is an element here of blaming the victim in the act of beatifying her, and it can’t be made into anything else.

Problem is, as several have pointed out, here “virtue” is not synonymous with “virginity” or “purity”. When a victim is under such duress, she won’t loose her virtue whether she refuses or not. It’s not an issue. So if it’s not, then it can’t really be a greater virtue to preserve what one can’t loose in the first place.

Additionally, there’s the argument that while rape is certainly a violation of one’s bodily integrity and sanctity, murder is an even greater violation. Given this, the victim is essentially telling the rapist that she is refusing to acquiesce (for lack of a better word) to this sin even though he has told her that because of her refusal he will commit a greater sin. And he may compound that by murdering her family as well. Even though she doesn’t sin either way, it’s better that he commit a larger sin than that she not commit a smaller one. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

I’m afraid it’s obvious that many church leaders still believe that being raped is a sin,and no amount of tweaking will change that or make it look any better. I pray our leaders will be enlightened sooner rather than later.

 

[alice24]

What confuses me is the thought that even if she didn´t allow him to rape her (rape as a sin), she allowed her to kill her (killing as a sin) with this “decision” - it doesn´t make sense.
Why it doesn´t make sense? Because there is no decision at all. If we try to see a decision, we would have the problem I stated above.

 

[Benadam]

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

I say this with respectful sincerity, when one thinks the lifting up of a person is the pushing down of another, especially if it is God doing the lifting, it exposes the error of the one thinking not the one lifting.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

As I said before, the Church leaders do not just go out and pick people and make them into saints of their own accord, without popular support. In Anna Kolesarova’ s case, her grave has apparently already been a pilgrimage site for young Slovaks for years, and her beatification process was completed back in 2012 and is only just now being approved by the Pope, so this girl has been venerated locally for many years already. Moreover, there is a large group of Catholic martyrs from that area who were martyred for resisting the Communists in some way. This girl is another addition to that group.

To me it seems like making this girl’s story all about the Church’s purported attitude towards rape is both missing the point and willfully ignoring the cultural context of why this girl’s grave is being visited by many young pilgrims. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the young pilgrims are female and that they are seeing her act in terms of heroic resistance to an oppressive regime of Communism, not all about whether a girl under threat of rape is somehow “immoral” if she “gives in.”

 

[Xantippe]

I can picture an older peasant Grandma warning her granddaughters about keeping pure so as not to be damaged and driving home the horror of being damaged to use a little fear to keep them in line and then these beliefs spread as if that is what the Church is teaching.

And that wouldn’t be erroneous if those actually were the social expectations and practices of the area, if a rape victim could expect life-long punishment from her community. (It’s not likely in the Slovak example, as the same thing was happening to thousands of women at the same time throughout Eastern and Central Europe during WWII as the Red Army marched through. But Anna wouldn’t necessarily have known that.)

Likewise, fearing pregnancy from rape more than death would not be illogical in certain social circumstances.

So it is possible to resist rape to the point of death without it having anything to do with piety or love of chastity, but more fear of injustice from one’s community.

 

[Xantippe]

As I said before, the Church leaders do not just go out and pick people and make them into saints of their own accord, without popular support. In Anna Kolesarova’ s case, her grave has apparently already been a pilgrimage site for young Slovaks for years, and her beatification process was completed back in 2012 and is only just now being approved by the Pope, so this girl has been venerated locally for many years already. Moreover, there is a large group of Catholic martyrs from that area who were martyred for resisting the Communists in some way. This girl is another addition to that group.

To me it seems like making this girl’s story all about the Church’s purported attitude towards rape is both missing the point and willfully ignoring the cultural context of why this girl’s grave is being visited by many young pilgrims. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the young pilgrims are female and that they are seeing her act in terms of heroic resistance to an oppressive regime of Communism, not all about whether a girl under threat of rape is somehow “immoral” if she “gives in.”

That’s very true.

But at the same time, it’s not an excuse to say false things about the case–like that she “Would Not Let” the Russian soldier rape her.

There has to be some sort of grounding in reality, for example the fact that the average male has much more upper body strength than the average female.

Do men really have more upper body strength than women?

While women's lower body strength is often in line with that of men, their upper body strength can be half as much. Why is this, and are there any long-term benefits to this difference in muscle makeup?

health.howstuffworks.com

“In a 1993 study exploring gender differences in muscle makeup, female participants exhibited 52 percent of men’s upper body strength, which the researchers partially attributed to their smaller muscles and a higher concentration of fatty tissues in the top half of the female body [source: Miller et al]. Another study published in 1999 similarly found women had 40 percent less upper body skeletal muscle [source: Janssen]. Even controlling for athletic aptitude doesn’t tip the upper body strength scales in favor of the female; an experiment comparing the hand grip strength of non-athletic male participants versus elite women athletes still revealed a muscle power disparity in favor of the menfolk”

tldr–The average man may have twice the upper body strength of the average female.

Given the large natural disparities in strength, it’s silly to talk as though the average male couldn’t overpower the average female if he chose to. Throw in stuff like combat training and experience or the victim being a tween girl from an impoverished family, and the strength disparity gets even bigger.

Edited to add: Continuing to fight a determined assailant with twice one’s upper body strength is unlikely to yield a different outcome than “giving in,” aside from sustaining more injuries.

I don’t want to discourage the use of standard self-defense techniques (which can often be very effective), but I think one has to have a sense of reality with regard to what the odds are if it comes down to brute strength vs. brute strength.

 

[alice24]

I don’t want to discourage the use of standard self-defense techniques (which can often be very effective), but I think one has to have a sense of reality with regard to what the odds are if it comes down to brute strength vs. brute strength.

This is so true. The first thing you learn in self defense classes is “if you can, run away” - for a good reason. I always was trained in a way, I even hold a security defence license and I would not be able to defend myself in a “bad luck”-moment against a man with common body strength. Most techniques only work if you have the first hit or in a well known environment.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

it’s not an excuse to say false things about the case–like that she “Would Not Let” the Russian soldier rape her.

Sine I am not finding that quote in the article linked by the OP, it seems like the OP made up the title of the thread and it is therefore the OP’s issue.

The Holy See is quoted in the article as saying that the girl was martyred “with hatred towards the faith” which was no doubt the case.

 

[Elizabeth3]

I just want to address all these arguments that people are giving about the impracticality of these situations. There still seems to be a huge misunderstanding of what the Church is saying when they declare these martyrs a saint.

The Church is saying that the normative (remember this word) way that these situations play out are pretty much all the arguments that anyone in this thread is making. St. Augustine, St. Thomas and others, as well as the Church’s position has been made very clear that a woman is not expected to fight to the death for the sake of an “intact hymen,” it doesn’t make her damaged, she doesn’t lose virginity or sanctity, and the sin is completely and totally that of the rapist’s. Several examples of these teachings have already been shared on this thread and I would challenge anyone to find an official teaching of the Church that says otherwise. This teaching applies to all rape victims across the board, Catholic or not.

See the CCC entry on rape.

See the ethical treatment directives of the Church for rape victims.

Ethical Treatment after Rape

Did you know that as long as testing shows that ovulation has not occurred yet in a rape victim’s cycle that she is allowed to be given the morning after pill to defend, (yes, defend) herself from pregnancy?

I’m not really seeing victim blaming or any of the other charges against the Church that are being questioned here. What I am seeing is a lot of disgust (rightly so) about historical attitudes towards women that stemmed from either pagan beliefs or mistaken understanding of what the Church is teaching, old wives tales, and sorry to say some Protestant attitudes about women. Simcha Fisher’s article from last year on Maria Goretti being one example of this confusion. None of this, however, has ever been officially taught by the Church.

So if we know what the Church’s teaching IS regarding rape, then She could not possibly be contradicting Herself by the elevation of martyrs who chose (yes, I’m using that word) to give their life for the sake of defending a certain tenant of the faith.

The Church understands martyrdom as a supernatural event between an individual holy soul and God’s Divine work. What the Church is saying about Anna, Maria and other virgin martyrs is that what happened was something miraculous and supernatural. It is a supernatural work that occurred between God and the soul in which the person had been carefully cultivated by grace either over a period of time before their martyrdom or by an infusion of grace in a matter of moments that caused these saints (with the cooperation of their free will), to be able to answer the call to imitate Christ in dying under persecution in order to witness (martyr mean witness) to the great value of the faith or to a particular truth of the faith.

My great wall o’theology-to be continued…darn these word limits.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Continued…

If we think it’s nuts that someone would rather their attacker commit murder than rape them, then it’s not any more nuts in which the early Jews were scratching their heads over the great Messiah and King who they were waiting to come and deliver them, who is then seen seemingly bloodied and defeated hanging ignobly from a cross which is used to put sinners to death.

These saints were called to the foolishness of the cross by God in imitation of Christ. Martyrdom is a gift of grace to certain souls who are called by God as witnesses and because of their willingness to die, when it was above and beyond the normative expectation or requirement, they are crowned with greatness in heaven.

Their example to us is not that we are all called to be martyrs (the Church doesn’t teach this), it is that the Faith in general and the particular truths of these Christian principles that they died defending should be taken seriously in our own lives because their value has been witnessed to by the saints. The martyrs answered a specific call from God for this specific purpose. That is the difference between what is normative, which is quite charitable and respectful of the victims and what is a supernatural call to imitate Christ.

These occurrences throughout time are God’s way of continuing to remind us of the truth of what we’ve been taught by the Church in a world that tells us otherwise during various times in history. In Anna’s case, when hundreds of women were being raped by soldiers, she stood out as a witness, (more to the men who were doing the raping than to women), to the value of a woman’s body who no man has a right to use that way and she’d rather die to testify to her own and other women’s dignity, than give him the satisfaction. God gave her the grace to witness to this truth.

 

[Pat_Albertson]

I’m not gonna lie, this is getting kinda gross.

Correct. In many wars, and especially WWII (especially in the vicinity of communist troops), rape was/is the norm. Resistance is often met with murder, and even compliance will not ensure either the continuation of either one’s own life or the lives of family members.

In Germany, during the years 1945 to 1948, Soviet troops raped freely. It is not a surprise that they raped elsewhere as well.

Finally, in 1948, the German communists flatly told their Soviet overlords that establishing a communist East German state would be impossible unless the Soviet troops stopped raping.

Many troops were, by that time, so addicted to rape that they had to be shot to be stopped. It was not uncommon for a commanding officer to have to mow down his own men in order to get them under control.

This discussion, from what I have seen of it, is unrealistically delicate, and borders on silliness. The post-war conditions were such that the ‘troops’ (if you can call them that) were virtually subhuman beasts. Indeed, by that time, one is justified in wondering if such bestial creatures even possessed souls at all.

I doubt the young lady in question had much time for deliberation. Her fault in judgement, such as it was, would probably have been on the order of accidentally slipping on a patch of black ice.

She probably knew all about the dangers and could have just made a momentary mistake in judgement.

Considering the nature of the ‘soldiers’ (soulless beasts) she was encountering, she could very well not have survived even if she had complied with their desires perfectly.

 

[Xantippe]

I would agree with practically everything there, except for “soulless beasts.”

I know from family/friend stories that it was the norm in Soviet-occupied areas (for example Finland during the 1939-1940 Soviet invasion or post-war Austria) to be very concerned about hiding girls from Soviet soldiers. One of our old family friends immigrated to the US from Austria, and she spent (as I recall) at least some weeks in hiding once Soviet occupation started. (I was a kid when I heard the story, so nobody was spelling it out for me why she needed to hide.)

Here’s what Wikipedia says Austria after WWII, when there were separate British, French, US and Soviet occupied zones:

Allied-occupied Austria - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

“But the reputation of the Soviet soldiers was harmed by the amount of sexual violence against women, which occurred in the first days and weeks after the Soviet victory.”

" Throughout 1945 and 1946, all levels of Soviet command tried, in vain, to contain desertion and plunder by rank and file. According to Austrian police records for 1946, “men in Soviet uniform”, usually drunk, accounted for more than 90% of registered crime (U.S. soldiers accounted for 5 to 7%). At the same time, the Soviet governors resisted the expansion and arming of the Austrian police force."

The Austrians were very lucky to be rid of Soviet occupation by 1955.

Edited to add: There’s a Czech/Slovak movie called Zelary (2003) where mountain villagers suffer under Nazi occupation, rejoice at being liberated by the Soviets, and then (rather horribly) something goes wrong, and the Red Army liberators start raping and murdering the villagers.

Želary - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was actually a bit surprised (and relieved) that that’s not how Downfall (2004) ends. At the end of Downfall, you see Germans committing suicide one after another (including a couple of cases of father or parents murdering their entire families), and it’s not clear from the movie that they did, in fact, have something to be concerned about.

 

[Xantippe]

Sine I am not finding that quote in the article linked by the OP, it seems like the OP made up the title of the thread and it is therefore the OP’s issue.

I’m mostly concerned about people in the thread (including the OP) who are overestimating the amount of choice involved or how much control Anna had over the situation.

My great wall o’theology-to be continued…darn these word limits.

I feel for you!

 

[Elizabeth3]

She probably knew all about the dangers and could have just made a momentary mistake in judgement.

Considering the nature of the ‘soldiers’ (soulless beasts) she was encountering, she could very well not have survived even if she had complied with their desires perfectly.

I think it’s awful to pooh-pooh these girl’s sacrifices and witness as nothing but a mistake in judgement on their part. How disingenuous to call it gross and not give them credit where credit is due in that they knew exactly what they were doing, they understood their dignity perfectly and would rather refuse than have a “soulless beast” make satisfaction for himself by use of them as if they were just as depraved as he was. If we want to lift women up, let’s not talk about how its as if they didn’t have minds of their own and were silly beasts led to their slaughter. Let’s instead let the “weak” show the “strong” how it’s really them that are truly weak.

Can you imagine what any man who may have raped a woman and got away with it who may be reading this and hearing that it would have been smarter or more practical if the girls hadn’t said no, and been raped instead? I can picture that kind of guy right now justifying himself in his own mind of “Well, see it wasn’t that bad what I did. I didn’t murder her or anything.”

For all those hundreds of raped women those soldiers left in their wake and who were overpowered against their will, God called this one young girl and gave her the supernatural grace to defend her dignity and which testifies to the dignity of the others. Everyone keeps pointing out that that soldier could have done with her whatever he wanted and there was nothing in her bodily strength that could have prevented that. Everyone making that argument is 100% right about that. However, the fact that that is not what played out when it was the most inevitable outcome of the match between these two is what is so supernatural about it.

I’ll tell you what most likely happened in both Maria’s and Anna’s case. It was the pure raw hatred of anything that was good, true and beautiful these men had in their depraved souls that when God enlightened their minds to see it in those moments, they lashed out in rage. That hatred was so strong that it overrode the original intent of what these men had planned that they just snapped and wanted to get rid of it because of how it made them see themselves when faced with the embodiment of it in these two girls.

The Church isn’t saying that the girls refusal to give in was somehow a “magical bubble” that protected them from rape. She is not saying that this is what will happen in all cases leading women to naive-ly believe that if their intentions are pure enough in saying no, that they can ward off a rapist with sheer force of will or superhuman physical strength. Please give the Church more credit and frankly free thinking women to have more sense than that. It makes all women look bad to act like they are so lacking in reason as to buy that nonsense.