Those of us who grew up Catholic in the 1950s and '60s are well acquainted with the story of St. Maria Goretti, who was canonized in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. As a girl, I had mixed feelings about her. I respected her piety and virtue. But the main message I got from her story was that it was dangerous to be a girl. My parents must have picked up on my uneasiness, or maybe they had some uneasiness themselves. I remember my dad saying something like, "I would rather have a living daughter than a dead saint." And my mother's opinion was that Assunta, Maria's mother, was pretty clueless not to have know that Maria's attacker, Alesandro Serenelli, was up to no good. "I'd have sorted him out with a 2 -by-4 before it ever got to the point that it did. And then I would have taken my kids and left." And she would have, too. I was comforted by her reaction; but even then I knew that she had never been as disempowered as Maria's mother had been. We had never known life without a safety net, as they had.
From the article:
" I think of Maria Goretti when reading the news about (ex-)Cardinal McCarrick, and the abused seminarians he left behind him. The price for serving Christ as a priest, in McCarrick’s world, was either being betrayed or betraying others, being preyed upon or turning a blind eye."
"Not a willing martyr for purity; rather, somebody who didn’t want to die; somebody who exercised no choice, only her own ability to refuse to pretend that this was anything but a rape, who insisted to the end that she was a human being, beloved of God, and that the man attacking her was, too."
"Maria Goretti was an eleven-year-old girl who was stalked, assaulted, and murdered by the twenty year old son of the family her own family lived with. I repeat these facts to myself when I think about her because I see no way to find in this story anything like heroism, only a terrorized child failed by those around her. But in this, Maria Goretti is hardly alone; children are not the only ones capable of being failed and abused. And yet what I appreciate in her story, I think, is that it remains her story—never her murderer’s."
The author also quotes Brian McNeil from his essay for New Blackfriars:
"Perhaps [her veneration] can also remind us of the profound
theological truth that no one is forgotten before God, and that all
suffering—even the meaningless pain and involuntary death of the
victims—is given a place in a hidden manner in the unfathomable divine
mystery of cross and resurrection."
Thank you for this post. I am looking forward to reading the Commonweal article. I have thought for some years that Maria Goretti should be patron saint for victims of abuse. I had thought it was one my personal idiosyncratic thoughts, so I'm glad to find out I'm not alone.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in an era of the church in which her martyrdom was not celebrated - we heard almost nothing about any of the saints in my 1970s formation. So I've not been burdened by needing to "unthink" about her in a certain way in order to think about her this way, as a saint for victims of abuse. FWIW.
Parenthood started me thinking about her in a different way. She was a reminder of the times when we as a society and as individuals have been unable to keep our children safe. I have granddaughter who is nearly the age Maria was when she died. It is heartbreaking to think of a kid not even middle school age facing a predator.
DeleteDon't know how many of you read "The Lovely Bones", it had some unsettling similarities to Maria's story.
Jim, the article mentions Maria's relics being in Chicago in 2015. Was it a big deal, or pretty quiet, known mainly to those who were interested in that sort of thing?
DeleteKatherine, I had not heard about it until I read your comment just now. I wish I had known, it is something I would have gone out of my way to venerate - as you can probably tell from my postings, the abuse scandals are something that I've taken an interest in, and I've stated already my thoughts about Maria Goretti vis a vis those scandals.
DeleteFWIW, a decade or so ago, relics of the Little Flower came to Chicago. That really was a big deal - many thousands of people descended on the church in this area where they were displayed. Veneration to her is pretty strong, I think.
One more relic anecdote: one time, my wife and I had a weekend downtown getaway. I awoke early one morning, grabbed my breviary, and headed to Holy Name cathedral, thinking I could do morning prayer in a corner pew. It turned out that on display were the relics of eight Mexican priest martyrs, all victims of the unrest and violence in Mexico in the 1930s. Blessed Miguel Pro was the only one I had heard of before, but apparently there were many priests in Mexico who were martyred. Our associate pastor now is from Mexico, and he tells me that from his home diocese alone there are something like 15 martyred priests from that period (I may not be recalling the exact number but it was something like that). At any rate, being in the presence of those relics made me feel humble and ignorant - not in a bad way, just a healthy spiritual reminder that I don't know everything and that people really are putting their lives on the line out of love for God and in service to the Gospel.
Really interesting read. Forgiveness in such situations is a mystery and a grace that is hard to fathom.
ReplyDeleteYes, in the same way that Jesus' prayer from the cross, "Father, forgive them" is hard to fathom.
DeleteThe Catholic girls high school in South Philly where I grew up was named after her. I must confess I belong to the camp that thought there could be a better name for a girls high school. The boys high was named after Bishop (later Saint)John Neumann, which made sense since he was big on education.
ReplyDeleteI have never liked the "virgin-martyr" stories. It seems that the church thinks it better for a woman/girl to die than to save her life, by submitting to the assault if necessary. It devalues the life of the woman, just as it does by teaching that medical people must let pregnant women die rather than take whatever medical steps are necessary to save her life, even if it results in losing the life of the unborn child. In the Arizona case, and in the Irish case, fetal development wasn't advanced enough to save the baby anyway, but the mother could have been saved. In Arizona, the woman's life was saved. In Ireland, it was not.
ReplyDeleteMaria Goretti had been taught to believe that "submitting" to her attacker to save her own life would be a mortal sin.
How tragic.
And unfortunately in that time and place, as a survivor of a sexual assault she would have been seen as damaged goods.
DeleteVery true, Katherine. Still true in too many places.
DeleteIsn't the point of the article in CW to move us away from the "purity or death" narrative?
DeleteMaria did what is instinctual--try to fight off an attack, both physically and with verbal appeals to his better nature.
What was holy was not that she died a virgin, but that she forgave the s.o.b.
Hard to imagine a Christian society in which an 11-year-old child is blamed for a crime committed against her, but the fact that Maria was afraid to tell anyone about the other times Alessandro tried to rape her speaks volumes about the treatment of women and children, and the ways we fail them.
"Isn't the point of the article in CW to move us away from the "purity or death" narrative?" That would be my take on it. One thing that bugs me is that an excessive focus on how a saint died takes away focus on how they lived their life. All accounts I have read of Maria's life emphasized her courage and selflessness, and her love of her family. She had to grow up too soon due to her family's poverty. But she helped her parents in every way that she could, and was unfailingly kind to her brothers and sisters. Could I have said the same thing about myself as a child? Um, no.
DeleteJean, You are so right.
ReplyDeleteJean: What was holy was not that she died a virgin, but that she forgave the s.o.b.
ReplyDeleteBut, that is not why she was canonized. She was canonized for dying rather than give up her virginity.
Pius XXII: “With splendid courage she surrendered herself to God and His grace and so gave her life to protect her virginity”
As the author of the article notes:
Perhaps this is what is ultimately unsettling about the Maria Goretti painted by Pius XII, intact except for having been stabbed fourteen times, the one to whom one prayer goes: “Teach me by your example to instill into others a real respect for modesty and purity.”
The Catholic church's hangups about sex even extend to saying that it is better to die than to submit to rape.
Here is a discussion of the subject:
Delete"Some saints who have fended off attempted rapists, such as Maria Goretti, have been honored for their purity. This in no way implies that others who were unable to fend off their attackers were sinful. In either case, it is the perpetrator, not the victim, who has sinned. Morality lies in the act of the will."
Anne, that's pretty interesting. I'd want to think more about the preserving-purity theme - one of our old friends once told me conservatives value purity as a form of holiness more than other people do. For whatever that's worth.
DeleteBut stepping back for a bit, I would say that saints are symbols, and there can easily be more than one thing about their lives - or their deaths - that strike chords with people, and some of those aspects may take on more importance over time, or perhaps in response to circumstances of a particular contemporary period that would have been unforeseen by our ancestors.
Thus: to the best of my knowledge, there was no sex-abuse scandal during Maria Goretti's life, nor during Pius XII's reign. But there is now. And that scandal brings to light an aspect of Maria's life and sainthood that may not have been as evident to him.
All of which is to say: with all due respect to Pius XII, what he liked about her doesn't need to be what I like about her. Saints are personal. If a saint's life is a symphony, and Blessed Pius likes the brass part and I like the strings, who is to say that I'm wrong?
Jim, I like that analogy, though it skates over the vexed question of whether Maria really died a virgin.
DeleteAs far as I could find out, the only evidence she had not been raped was Alessandro's testimony, which he stuck by his whole life. Certainly, there would be some reason for him to deny a rape in order to make him self look less monstrous.
I tried to find out if there had been any examination of Maria's body, but the whole prospect was so damn sad and depressing, I quit trying to track down whether there was more evidence.
Her sainthood stands, imo, whether she was raped or not.
I get Anne's resentment over the Church's preoccupation with virginity and sex. But I don't see where those hangups make Maria's story less compelling.
I lost a comment several day ago. I will just add that my problem has to do with how "purity" seems to be defined, even now.
ReplyDeleteThe notion that those who are married, and not virgins, are less "pure" than virgins is appalling. The notion that a woman who is raped is less "pure" than she was before she was raped, because she was a virgin, is appalling. Reducing "purity" to the virginal state is appalling.
"Reducing "purity"to the virginal state is appalling."
DeleteAnne, I agree.