St Maria Goretti

Tradition in Action ^ | July 4, 2004 | Professor Plinio Correa de Oliviera

[AskStPhilomena]

Maria was born October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, Italy, near Ancona to Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. In 1896, her father, a farmer, moved the family to Ferriere di Conco, near Anzio. Soon afterward, he died, and the family was forced to move to the Serenelli farm to survive.

At age 12, Maria was stabbed to death on July 6, 1902 by Alexander Serenelli, the son of her father’s partner, while resisting his attempt to rape her. She was canonized in 1950 by Pius XII. Her murderer, through her intercession, converted and became a penitent Franciscan brother.

Comments of Prof. Plinio:

Many things could be said on the feast day of St. Maria Goretti. But the sublime example she left to us regarding purity stands in such flagrant contrast with the customs of our days that it demands comment.

While the Church commemorates the purity of a saint who, while still in her childhood, sacrificed her life for the love of purity, a victim of a bestial assault, in our days we witness the introduction of the scandalous custom of the topless bathing suit. This debauched garb is so obscene that it can hardly be mentioned here.

The Revolution is inexorable in its march. In the ‘40s it introduced the one-piece bathing suit, in the ‘50s the bikini, and now (in the ‘60s) it launches the topless. It won’t stop until complete nudism is established. It wants the complete degradation of Catholic customs and morality. Present day society marches toward nudism stimulated alternatively by the secret forcers and the acceptance of the people.

The acceptance of nudism is the establishment of anarchy in morals. Anarchism has as it corollary nudism. Anarchism fights to strike down not only every form of authority, but also every manifestation of modesty and decency in apparel. The attacks on each front support one another, heading toward a complete destruction of Catholic Civilization. I remember reading that recently many English anarchists gathered for a conference – in a castle of a duke, by the way – both the women and men were completely naked. Anarchy and nudism march together.

There is a principle in psychology that says: “If the man does not live according to his ideas, he will end by thinking according to his actions.” Applying it to our days, we see that by virtually accepting nudism, the contemporary world is slipping toward anarchy.

On this feast day of St. Maria Goretti, it is sad to consider the indifference of so many Catholics who have accepted the gradual moral degradation of customs, such as the introduction of the bikini and the topless bathing suit. Traveling by a lower or higher speed, they end by marching on the same path of the Revolution.

St. Maria Goretti represents adhesion to the traditional doctrine of the Church on purity in a very radical way. Her example tells us that the Catholic should die rather than lose his purity. The Catholic Church always teaches the same and remains the same. The Sacred Blood of Our Lord in the Eucharist should be called today, as it always was, the Wine that generates virgins.

Just as St. Maria Goretti was not able to resist her aggressor without a special supernatural grace, we are not capable of resisting the universal wave of impurity in the contemporary world without a special grace. To attain such an indispensable help, we need to have faith, be pious, pray, and make penance and reparation.

There is a parallel point that I still would like to stress. Among the often mentioned social solutions for today’s society, the role of purity has been almost forgotten. Nonetheless it plays a preponderant role. In fact, there cannot be a true social order without the properly ordered family, and a good familiar order cannot exist unless its members practice chastity according to their states of life. That is, there is either the perfect chastity of single persons or the matrimonial chastity of married ones. These two holy forms of virtue must be practiced and defended. Without purity, the social and political orders inevitably fall into ruin. There is no serious fight against the enemies of the Catholic Civilization or struggle for its restoration if the virtue of purity is not a foundation stone.

We should ask St. Maria Goretti to be our patron in the defense of purity and help us to preserve purity. And if, by some unhappy circumstance, one strays from this pathway, he must ask her to inspire him with a real contrition and repentance, as she did with her own murderer. Being pure, we will be the living stones for the building of the Reign of Mary foretold at Fatima.

[Pyro7480]

Thanks for posting this. BTTT for 6 July 2004, the Feast Day of St. Maria Goretti.

[Land of the Irish]

Ping