In Brazil, a lay woman was beatified (to a lesser degree) on 10/12. Isabella Cristina Murad Campos. She is therefore in a long line of so-called martyrs of chastity. Martyr of Chastity There is a woman who defended herself during an attempted rape and risked her life to pay the price.The incident caused a stir in the Czech Republic Anky Kolesarova, was beatified in 2018 in Slovakia. Here, during an attempted rape, he was shot by a Red Army soldier.But she is the most famous martyr of chastity Marie Goretti, was stabbed by a neighbor in an attempted rape at just 12 years old. As she reads her story, she comes across one more detail. Her killer was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but in prison he converted and became a member of the Capuchin Order.
The story of Maria Goretti is sometimes interpreted as the story of a woman who sacrificed her life to lead others to Christ. is moved to This is a problem, at least from the point of view of Catholic theology.The story of Isabella Cristina Murad Campos is in many ways similar to that of Maria Goretti. Her Campos was murdered by a fitter who came to her apartment to assemble her wardrobe, and he stabbed her when she resisted rape.
Doesn’t the Catholic Church at least look like a society of disproportionate people obsessed with the sexuality of others?
while further message You’ll also find information from the Vatican on how the sex crimes investigation continues. In France, for example, 11 of a total of 120 bishops are now under investigation for abuse. Some are investigated by ecclesiastical courts, others by ecclesiastical and civil courts. This was announced by the President at the plenary session of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. At first glance, it might appear that at least the French church has begun to inform transparently about sex crimes. Unfortunately, it’s the other way around.She started notifying me only when her weekly magazine Famile Chrétienne The real reason for the resignation of French bishop Santier has been announced. This was his psychosexual abuse of two adult men. After the article was published, he had five more victims come forward. pope He said he was ashamed of the situation and was confident the church was doing what it could to prevent and rightly address these situations.
Clergy as the sole cause of abuse?
Clergy is the most frequently cited reason when the causes of sexual abuse are discussed in the Catholic Church. It is the behavior of the priests that they abuse their power. This is due to their spiritual state and authority. Pope Francis works on this term.In connection with abuse it was used by A letter to God’s people from 2018The term clericism is problematic for several reasons. I’ll give you two for everyone’s sake.
On the one hand, it is not taken into account that abuses using spiritual authority can also be perpetrated by lay people, i.e. those who are not ordained to the priesthood or are not members of religious orders.at the same time according to reports The French Independent Sexual Abuse Commission reports that one-third of the 330,000 cases of sexual abuse were committed by members of the public. The second problem is that the term clericism very often acts as a catchall. The attacker in question was a bearer of clericism, so anything related to abuse is dismissed along with the fact that it is obvious. In slave societies, however, slave owners were not only responsible for slavery, but also for the norms and culture of that society, or perhaps shared ideas about the world. same as physical abuse. He is greatly aided by a broad range of ideas about the roles of men and women, the symbolic language that the Church communicates.
Chastity as the most important part of Catholicism
In the Catholic Church, the word chastity is often used. This means sexual purity with a spiritual meaning. Some form of ritual cleansing is found in almost all religions, whether it be the washing of the body before prayer or the command regarding ritually clean food. Sexual virginity is found in all religions around the world, even in Judaism, where fertility is valued highly. However, its theming in the Catholic Church has its own specifics. This is well illustrated by Izzy Killer, the first official victim of sexual abuse in the Czech Republic, to speak at his Pride in Prague service. Because what he actually has and what he is going to do with me, I did not deliver to him according to the Catholic doctrine, the most important thing that is required of me, which is purity..” Definitely not the most important thing. After all, there are only six commandments on sexuality. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church pretends that sexual chastity is the most important thing.
The importance of sexual chastity is emphasized by the vows of priests, monks and monks. They promise exactly what is commonly called celibacy. The word clean has considerable evaluative connotations. Survivors of sexual violence often refer to themselves as defiled or defiled. filthy“Pure”, or those who have taken a vow of chastity, have the right to decide in the Catholic Church. Until recently, the most important Vatican offices were open only to clergy. Only recently has Pope Francis opened access to the Vatican’s high ranks to laypeople, those who have not taken a vow of chastity.
Sexual abstinence is definitely one way to get closer to God and have a different spiritual experience. Thousands of years of tradition in most religions attest to this. Therefore, this approach cannot be easily rejected. Still, I have to ask. At the very least, ask if the Catholic Church doesn’t look like a society of unbalanced people obsessed with the sexuality of others. A language that does not suffer from explicit symbolism and does not pre-judgment victims of sexual violence. A language that does not create simple norms and builds the idea that women who do not protect themselves from sexual violence are impure.
woman as aggressor
In the Catholic Church, the idea that women are responsible for rape has prevailed from the beginning. Women have been seen as seducers since Eve’s time when she tricked Adam into eating an apple.For example they show it very well bad book, was made in a court having jurisdiction of the head. Cases of pregnant unmarried women came to these courts quite often. A court could force a man with whom a woman had sex to marry her. It is no coincidence that murderer Marie Goretti used the same tactic. The court then considered whether she had really provoked him.
A very similar story of the established perception of women as the cause of the problem is found in the part of the ritual called the Introduction of Six Months. After six months of pregnancy, women came to the church to receive blessings. Blessings vary depending on the situation, such as blessings for sick sextuplets, blessings for sextuplets who have lost a child, and blessings for mothers of illegitimate children. For mothers of married children, the ceremonies are filled with joy and the mothers are welcomed back into the community, whereas ceremonies intended for mothers of illegitimate children are considered penance.
As Mikaela Vulczykova notes in her book Mother’s Blessing, women are forced to kneel and publicly regret the joy they experienced in conceiving a child. It has never been clarified that labor pains can often be unconsciously performed or soothed (which was often the case). It was known that one could not conceive a child without the male orgasm, which of course cannot be said of the female orgasm. As a woman, a man has been presented as someone who has no choice but to meet such a woman and have sex with her. Jan Balik Arguing that girls must protect themselves from rape. A woman in an attempted rape situation is guilty of seducing a man. They just exist and are always passive attackers. He then has two options to prove the sex was involuntary: he must either defend himself or die.
dead sacrifice, good sacrifice
When individual clergymen of the Catholic Church talk about sexual abuse, they invariably refer to what they have already done. But as long as there are still women who resisted sexual violence and were murdered, beatified and canonized, all proclamations, pastoral letters, commissions, and spontaneous volitions are of no avail. There is no point in doing anything else until it is made clear that the victim is never responsible. Honoring women who died to protect themselves from invaders is to raise the value of purity above all else, including life. When you have to constantly fight the desire to prefer being killed in case of sexual violence. They still need to remind themselves that what they did or didn’t do at the time of the rape was okay. And when they start doing well, the Catholic Church will come along with other Martyrs of Chastity and abandon all work.
Last but not least, it shows that the dead are the only victims the church actually plans to care for. They don’t complain and don’t apologize.
The author is a columnist and Catholic.
