I read this and don’t understand what she is trying to say. I fully understand that being raped and then being involved with prosecution of her attackers was traumatic.
But what any of this has to do with church or the Virgin Mary or any cultural norms about women and sex, is just beyond my comprehension.
“But what any of this has to do with church or the Virgin Mary or any cultural norms about women and sex, is just beyond my comprehension.”
WaPo Publisher: “Our circulation numbers a dropping like a lead balloon. I have no idea what’s wrong with people these days, they’re rejecting the best news and opinion pieces we have to offer in droves.”
She is saying that there is no God, and thus nothing supernatural; therefore, Mary was sexually violated, and rather than live with the great stigma of rape, she invented a fantasy to hide her shame.
I pity this anti-theist both for the violation she suffered and for the cynical hatred that motivates her.
I don’t understand why she feels reproached by virginity. It’s not her fault she was raped, but it appears she has never stopped torturing herself over it, somehow.
But terror and pain, and helpless humiliation, leave scars that resist healing. I will not ridicule her because I can see she is suffering inwardly, and has been for a long, long time.
I just pray that she will accept that she is innocent in this matter of sexual violation, and that God has restored her, is restoring her, and will restore her to radiant wholeness, body and soul, because God glories in the well-being of His children.
And His compassion is drawn to the broken-hearted.