By
Austin Ruse
(
Crisis Magazine)
Did you know that St. Maria Goretti was even the least bit controversial?
The facts of her case are not disputed.
She was a peasant girl of 11 who came under sexual assault from a
twenty-year-old male who shared the building where she lived with her
family. She resisted, telling him it would be a sin and that he would go
to Hell. He stabbed her 14 times, as she lay before him and as she
tried to flee.
It is said to have taken hours to get her the few miles to the local
hospital where she was operated on without anesthesia. So primitive was
her everyday poverty-stricken existence, some say it was at the hospital
where she first saw electric lights. Goretti died but not before
forgiving her attacker whom she hoped to see one day in Heaven.
What is controversial is the response to Maria Goretti.
Goretti was beatified in 1947 by Pope Pius XII and canonized by him
three years later as a “virgin-martyr.” At her canonization Pius called
her “this sweet little martyr of purity.” He said this to a crowd of
200,000, a crowd so large, mostly of young people, that for the first
time ever a canonization Mass was held outside in St. Peter’s Square
rather than inside the basilica.
At her beatification, Pius said, “Maria Goretti resembled St. Agnes
in her characteristic virtue of fortitude. This virtue of fortitude is
at the same time the safeguard as well as the fruit of virginity. Our
new
beata was strong and wise and fully aware of her dignity.
That is why she professed death before sin. She was not twelve years of
age when she shed her blood as a martyr, nevertheless what foresight,
what energy she showed when aware of danger! She was on the watch day
and night to defend her chastity, making use of all the means at her
disposal, persevering in prayer and entrusting the lily of her purity to
the special protection of Mary, the Virgin of virgins. Let us admire
the fortitude of the pure of heart. It is a mysterious strength far
above the limits of human nature and even above ordinary Christian
virtue.”
On the 100
th anniversary
of her death, Pope St. John Paul the Great underscored the importance
of her virginity to her final struggle, “She did not flee from the voice
of the Holy Spirit, from the voice of her conscience. She rather chose
death. Through the gift of fortitude, the Holy Spirit helped her to
‘judge’—and to choose with her young spirit. She chose death when there
was no other way to defend her virginal purity.”
She chose death when there was no other way to defend her virginal
purity. And there is the controversy. There are certain voices in the
blogosphere who are offended at this notion that Maria Goretti died
defending her virginal purity.
Simcha Fisher is so incensed at the notion she
wrote a whole column
entitled “Maria Goretti Didn’t Die for Her Virginity.” Fisher is smart
enough to know she couldn’t get away with that headline so she tries to
cover herself with her first sentence, “Or she wasn’t canonized
just because she managed to remain a virgin, anyway.”
However, Fisher argues that Goretti was canonized because she focused
on her attacker’s soul rather than on her own virginity. Goretti tried
to convince him that he was committing a mortal sin and would go to Hell
for what he was threatening to do. Fisher says Goretti was not in love
with a particular virtue but rather in love with the humanity of a
particular person, her attacker.
Fisher says such notions as “holiness, chastity, humility, charity,
diligence” are “bathwater” surrounding the “baby” which is “love in
action.”
On Facebook, Fisher actually dismisses those who maintain the view
held by both Pope Pius XII and St. John Paul the Great as the “Maria
Goretti died out of love for her hymen” crowd.
Fisher was not the only one.
Where Pius XII and John Paul the Great called young people to emulate
Maria Goretti, a blogger at the ever-diminishing Patheos says, not so
fast! Blogger Kari Persson is concerned that Goretti’s response unto
death may be considered “normative.” She says such a response to Goretti
is “possibly deeply damaging” and could result in “frustration, hatred,
and anger, mixed with envy and self-reproach” among those “affected by
rape, whether victims or those close to victims.” She also says, “Not
everyone can express forgiveness for their attackers as readily as St.
Maria…” We should view all of this as miraculous and certainly not
normative.
Persson
seems fully subscribed
to the commonality of our age where trophies are given just for showing
up, where winning first prize somehow diminishes those who are second,
or third, or last.
Of course, the Church has never taught that all are called to
martyrdom. However, we are called to emulate or to draw inspiration from
them.
Here is John Paul II on the centenary of her death, “I am especially
holding up this saint as an example to young people who are the hope of
the Church and of humanity.” He also said her “martyrdom” heralded the
beginning of the great century of martyrs, a century where Catholics
died for their faith, as she did.
Yet another blogger at Patheos joined the Goretti fray. Mary Pezzulo
begins her blog-post
with a big sigh: “It’s that time of year again. Today is Maria
Goretti’s feast day.” Maria Goretti’s feast day is an annual trial for
Pezzulo.
Pezzulo recalls a moment a few years ago when a Franciscan nun
exhorted her that Maria Goretti “died rather than give up her purity.”
Pezzulo left the bookshop where this horror happened “as quickly as
possible” and then regretted not telling the Nun “how many people the
sister might hurt by repeating the story in that way.”
Pezzulo writes, “Becoming the victim of someone else’s sin is never a
sin. It wouldn’t have been for Maria Goretti, either.” Had she fought
her attacker and been raped nonetheless, “she would have incurred no
guilt. God would have still known her to be pure.” Pezzulo seems to
accuse the nun, and others like her, of canonizing Goretti because
Goretti refused to be a victim of rape.
One Patheos blogge
r named Max Lindeman suggested that Maria
could not be considered a martyr since she did not die for hatred of the
faith and that “martyr of charity” was not “coined until the
beatification of Maximillian Kolbe.” For that, though, we can turn to
the Angelic Doctor who wrote, “Not only is he a martyr one who refuses
to deny a truth of the faith, but he who dies for the sake of some
virtue, or to avoid sin against any commandment.” We also note the words
of Pius XII and John Paul the Great.
To see how all this has become so unhinged, when Deacon Jim Russell
went to the comment boxes to quote John Paul II on Maria Goretti and her
virginity, another Patheos blogger named Cynthia Schrage asked him,
“What is your f***ing problem?” and accused him of being a “spiritual
stalker.”
It is hard to understand this odd fight over Maria Goretti and her
canonization. The Church —as expressed in the words of the Pope who
canonized her and his successors—regards Goretti as a martyr to her
virginity. That is a fact not even Patheos and Aleteia bloggers can get
around, try as they might.
It could be because of our hyper-sexualized world, also a world where
there are demonstrations to defend those criticized for the way they
dress or how they act-out sexually in ways inappropriate to their
station in life. They call this “slut-shaming.” What greater
slut-shaming could there be than a feast day for a girl who would rather
die than lose her virginity? Pius XII, in his homily for Maria,
exhorted parents to keep their children “away from the training places
of wickedness and moral perversion.” Today we march to defend those who
so indulge. These days, it is nearly impossible for anyone to get out
of their teens, and even tweens, with their virginity intact. It is
possible that Goretti’s purity is an offense to those with a “past” or
who are sympathetic to those with such regrettable pasts. We also live
in a world inordinately concerned with giving offense, even at the
expense of celebrating goodness. You cannot celebrate the traditional
family for fear of offending the children from broken homes. You can’t
even say “broken home” anymore. You cannot celebrate the virginity of
Maria Goretti for fear of offending those who are not virgins or those
who have been raped... (
continued)
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