Sex Or Death?

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As Catholics, we honor St. Maria Goretti because she resisted having sex and was killed for resisting.

I acknowledge that maybe I don’t know the St. Maria Goretti story as well as some—but from what I do know, something has always bothered me about her and I hope someone can explain.

It always seemed to me like she chose to be killed rather than have sex. To me this almost seems like choosing death over sex. It seems like an indirect form of suicide rather than sex.

Particularly with the church’s emphasis on choosing life, this always bothered me.

Is the church saying it is better to die or better to commit suicide than to submit to sexual activity outside of marriage?
 
Did all the martyrs who ever lived and died commit suicide? No. They had a choice–compromise the faith or be killed. This is the ultimate love of God. Suicide is a selfish decision to abandon all hope and not trust in God’s Providence.
 
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Genesis315:
Did all the martyrs who ever lived and died commit suicide? No. They had a choice–compromise the faith or be killed. This is the ultimate love of God. Suicide is a selfish decision to abandon all hope and not trust in God’s Providence.
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Well, strictly speaking, not true.

Maximilian Kolbe was merely standing in line in Auschwitz when he saw Franciszek Gajowniczek condemned to death. Maximillian Kolbe walked up to the Commandant and pointed at Franciszek Gajowniczek and said, **‘I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.’ ** So, he volunteered to die in someone else’s place, and not forced to choose between compromising his faith or be killed.
 
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BibleReader:
Well, strictly speaking, not true.

Maximilian Kolbe was merely standing in line in Auschwitz when he saw Franciszek Gajowniczek condemned to death. Maximillian Kolbe walked up to the Commandant and pointed at Franciszek Gajowniczek and said, **‘I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.’ ** So, he volunteered to die in someone else’s place, and not forced to choose between compromising his faith or be killed.
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That is not suicide that is laying down your life for another.
 
Last I heard, police advise women when being raped to do everything possible to keep from getting killed.

If Catholics are to be consistent with honoring this saint, than should we tell our own daughters to disregard that teaching, and that it is better to be killed than to be raped?

I know at least two large Catholic families in our parish that would not exist if the mothers had followed that advice when they were young.

This is a fascinating question. I’ve wondered about this same issue ever since I first heard of her.

Personally I don’t know the details either, but my question is whether, given the choice at hand, which choice serves the Lord better? To go on living and perhaps perform other acts of kindness, or to refuse to be physically controlled by a man bent on sinful deeds? Or did she figure she was dead anyway and so she might as well say no, but if that was the case I don’t figger we’da sainted her – or not?

Alan

[edit]To add fuel to the fire, how do we reconcile honoring her for preventing men from attacking her, while we honor Christ for willingly letting men Have Their Way with Him – when he could have stopped it and sin was not an issue? If she had been raped, then who committed a sin? Was she saving her attacker from a sexual sin – by getting him to choose to kill her instead? None of this is clear to me.
 
Know the details please. Not only did she resist, she forgave her attacker.

catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=78

Patron of youth, young women, purity, and victims of rape

b: 1890 d: 1902

Born in Corinaldo, Ancona, Italy, on October 16 1890; her farmworker father moved his family to Ferrier di Conca, near Anzio. Her father died of malaria and her mother had to struggle to feed her children.

In 1902 an eighteen-year-old neighbor, Alexander, grabbed her from her steps and tried to rape her. When Maria said that she would rather died than submit, Alexander began stabbing her with a knife.

As she lay in the hospital, she forgave Alexander before she died. Her death didn’t end her forgivness, however.

Alexander was captured and sentenced to thirty years. He was unrepentant until he had a dream that he was in a garden. Maria was there and gave him flowers. When he woke, he was a changed man, repenting of his crime and living a reformed life. When he was released after 27 years he went directly to Maria’s mother to beg her forgiveness, which she gave. “If my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withold forgiveness,” she said.

When Maria was declared a saint in 1950, Alexander was there in the St. Peter’s crowd to celebrate her canonization. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950 for her purity as model for youth.

She is called a martyr because she fought against Alexander’s attempts at sexual assault. However, the most important aspect of her story is her forgiveness of her attacker – her concern for her enemy extending even beyond death. Her feast day is July 6. St. Maria Goretti is the patroness of youth and for the victims of rape.
 
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AlanFromWichita:
If Catholics are to be consistent with honoring this saint, than should we tell our own daughters to disregard that teaching, and that it is better to be killed than to be raped?
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The Church does not teach one has to be killed, but She honors those who exhibit heroic virtue as Maria did.
 
This is a perfect example of how we should feel about commiting sin. We should all want to die rather than commit a sin against God. (easier said than done, I know)
But, if you’re being forced, then it wouldn’t be your sin anyways, would it?
 
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Firebug:
This is a perfect example of how we should feel about commiting sin. We should all want to die rather than commit a sin against God. (easier said than done, I know)
But, if you’re being forced, then it wouldn’t be your sin anyways, would it?
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While chair of the Home and School committee, the committee (PTA-ish I guess) had requested we purchase some books. I suggested we purchase them all with the exception of the one “She Said Yes” by Misty Bernall. I suggested we look into that one more first, because libraries of religious schools were really being pushed to buy this book as an example of Today’s Martyr, and something wasn’t making sense about the whole story.

For those who remember or otherwise know about the Columbine CO shooting, supposedly one of the kids doing all the shooting (many were killed) put a gun to Cassie’s face and shouted, “do you believe in God?” She said yes, and the kid shot her point blank in the face, shortly before blowing herself up.

This was all as reported by a friend of Cassie and her family who saw it. To me it was weird on several planes. It just didn’t seem like it fit the rest of the profile of what the shooters actually did. Anyway, it seems (I don’t remember the source but I took it as authoritative) soon there was controversy over whether her friend just made it up to comfort the dead girl’s dad, who later spoke to a congressional subcommittee and wrote a poem and all that based on heroism.

She certainly was a victim, but whether we needed to spend parent money on a book about a dubious story about an “iffy” act of faith was another story. We ended up not buying the book. Some objected, because they said even if it wasn’t true it was a good example for Catholic Girls to see their faith. Too much chance it was sensationalism, I thought, and the vote went my way. We did provide budget for an alternate book about actual martyrs – that was on the librarians’ “second string” wish list. We figured that way we were safer not to be spending parents’ money to teach their kids possible lies.

OK, I’ll go now. I know I write too much, but I’m working on slowing down.

Alan
 
I went to a Catholic girls high school. There was a life sized statue of Maria Garetti in the stairwell. She was holding a lilly as a sign of purity. We were told that she was sainted for resisting rape to the point of death, the forgiveness part was left out. The example that was pointed out to us was purity was preferable to a life as “impure”.

As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, this made me feel really crappy, because obviously I would have been better off dead, at least as far as the church was concerned.

Glad to know now there is more to the story.

cheddar
 
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AlanFromWichita:
OK, I’ll go now. I know I write too much, but I’m working on slowing down.

Alan
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no no no. It’s good that you write a lot. You write interesting things/facts/opinions. 🙂
 
But, if you’re being forced, then it wouldn’t be your sin anyways, would it?
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No, but if you SUBMIT…its no longer “being forced”.

Rape is rape because the woman resists it.

Even if Maria Goretti had sucessfully been raped, she wouldn’t have sinned BECAUSE SHE RESISTED.

But if you give in, it isn’t really rape in the highest degree anymore, its sort of a coerced fornication.

If someone is pressuring you into sex, you are bound to resist, no matter what form the “pressuring” takes.
 
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AlanFromWichita:
This was all as reported by a friend of Cassie and her family who saw it. To me it was weird on several planes. It just didn’t seem like it fit the rest of the profile of what the shooters actually did. Anyway, it seems (I don’t remember the source but I took it as authoritative) soon there was controversy over whether her friend just made it up to comfort the dead girl’s dad, who later spoke to a congressional subcommittee and wrote a poem and all that based on heroism.
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Do you mind clarifying that statement?
 
Say for example someone breaks into my house in the night while my husband is away. I have five children sleeping. I wake up with the intruder there. I have a choice, fight, make lots of noise, risk my life, risk the kids coming running and putting themselves in harms way … OR, I can quietly try to resist but essentially submit unwillinginly hoping he will do his business and then go away so as to avoid any disturbance/harm to the kids - or that would be the hope anyway. So with the second option, even though he has come into my house uninvited to do his crime, it’s no longer rape as much as co-erced sex? Riiiight…

Or put it another way. A self-defence book suggested that if you had the chance and there was in intruder or even invited guest who was making you feel uncomfortable or could attack you, to climb out the bathroom window or something, if you had a chance, and run for help. I’m sorry but even if the door was wide open and I had the chance, do you think I’m going to leave my five kids alone in the house with an intruder while I go get help? I couldn’t leave to save myself. So if I have the chance to escape and don’t because I don’t want to leave my kids vulnerable, I have to accept some responsibility for co-erced fornication? Don’t think so.

Let’s blame the victim again.
 
As a good catholic she knew that she would not have committed a sin by being assaulted but that he would have sinned. This is why she resisted his advances. When he stabbed her (multiple times) her heroic virtue was shown in her love for him in not wanting him to sin and in her forgiveness of him while committing the sin of murder. Her further love for him was shown in her forgiving him in a vision and the eventual conversion of his life. And her love for him was made whole in her parents forgiveness of him later in life.

Maria shows us true love and is a mirror of Christ. That is why she is a saint.
 
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mumto5:
Say for example someone breaks into my house in the night while my husband is away. I have five children sleeping. I wake up with the intruder there. I have a choice, fight, make lots of noise, risk my life, risk the kids coming running and putting themselves in harms way … OR, I can quietly try to resist but essentially submit unwillinginly hoping he will do his business and then go away so as to avoid any disturbance/harm to the kids - or that would be the hope anyway. So with the second option, even though he has come into my house uninvited to do his crime, it’s no longer rape as much as co-erced sex? Riiiight…

Or put it another way. A self-defence book suggested that if you had the chance and there was in intruder or even invited guest who was making you feel uncomfortable or could attack you, to climb out the bathroom window or something, if you had a chance, and run for help. I’m sorry but even if the door was wide open and I had the chance, do you think I’m going to leave my five kids alone in the house with an intruder while I go get help? I couldn’t leave to save myself. So if I have the chance to escape and don’t because I don’t want to leave my kids vulnerable, I have to accept some responsibility for co-erced fornication? Don’t think so.

Let’s blame the victim again.
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I agree w/ you wholeheartedly.
 
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mosher:
As a good catholic she knew that she would not have committed a sin by being assaulted but that he would have sinned. This is why she resisted his advances. When he stabbed her (multiple times) her heroic virtue was shown in her love for him in not wanting him to sin and in her forgiveness of him while committing the sin of murder. Her further love for him was shown in her forgiving him in a vision and the eventual conversion of his life. And her love for him was made whole in her parents forgiveness of him later in life.

Maria shows us true love and is a mirror of Christ. That is why she is a saint.
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What you say makes sense except for what is in the bold. She let him stab her so he wouldn’t sin?
 
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batteddy:
If someone is pressuring you into sex, you are bound to resist, no matter what form the “pressuring” takes.
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Then you have answered my question. If I understand you right, if a woman is against deadly force, such as multiple street gang members, and even if she is being held down, she still must continue to fight until either she’s dead or the attackers give up. Or she disables the attackers.

Personally I think it would be a good idea for every woman to take a self-defense course. There are a lot of things they can do, that an attacker would not normally expect a woman to do.

Of course the police have a habit of telling people not to defend themselves. Often store owners pack a pistol they are not supposed to have, for example, and guess what? They end up stopping robberies and even serial aggravated robbers.

I’m lousy at fighting. Good thing I’m not an attractive target I guess. 😛

Alan
 
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wabrams:
What you say makes sense except for what is in the bold. She let him stab her so he wouldn’t sin?
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I miss typed: From the bold to the word and you can delete.

*Edit: I will edit the original post.
 
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