Maria Goretti and “white trash” - a contemporary view of her life.
The story of a martyr.
Maria Goretti grew up a daughter of poor peasants, who earned their living as field hands. Maria’s mother had to work in the fields and Maria essentially became the mom to her siblings during the day, taking care of the household chores while her mother worked. Maria was well known to the neighbors for her joyful and generous personality and pious devotion. When she was twelve, a rather coarse young man who lived in the same complex, took notice of the young girl.
Allessandro was dissolute and disrespectful, a user of pornography. He eventually tried to rape Maria, although she resisted, pleading with him not to endanger his soul, warning that his attentions were a mortal sin. Forcing himself upon her, Maria resisted his advances and he stabbed her repeatedly with a knife. Maria died twenty four hours later, having preserved her innocence and forgiven her attacker. (The murderer later repented in prison, inspired by a vision of the Saint. He actually was reconciled to her mother after his release from prison.)
Patron of youth.
Since I grew up in an Italian neighborhood, Maria Goretti was a big deal for me - she and Dominic Savio were held up as models and patrons of youth. The neighborhood I grew up in was considered by outsiders to be tough. Before we moved there, all my Anglo friends said it was full of gangs and street toughs. I couldn’t imagine that, being an Italian neighborhood, I associated it with the best of everything Catholic, saints and devotions, etc.. I wasn’t scared to move there at all, nor was I disappointedwhen we had- my dearest friends and lasting friendships were cultivated there.
At that time, Italians still experienced the remnants of discrimination common to all ethnic groups as they assimilate into American society. Granted, my friend’s parents and grandparents would have experienced it more intensely, but in the 1960’s people still used the derogatory terms of ‘wap’ and ‘dago’ in reference to Italians.
The neighborhood
The neighborhood was not poor, but rather working class, and the “upper class” were the store and bar owners, along with those who owned rental property. Of course there were poorer families, divorced women with children, etc. Everyone knew one another however, and there definitely were some rough families.
For example, I knew a girl whose mother was shot in the face by her husband. One of the neighborhood toughs kidnapped his girlfriend because her parents opposed the relationship. I heard of an occasional rape, and child molestation, etc.. Some families had distant mob connections, and we had our own ’strega’ or witch, who did spells to get rid of the evil eye, and some say, perform abortions. (No one ever revealed to me who it was however.)
My point is, that aside from our modernity, it could have been Maria Goretti’s neighborhood - like her mother, many of my friend’s mom’s worked. Maria Goretti and her family would have enjoyed little esteem or respect from the gentry in the region she lived; just as in my neighborhood, outsiders thought our area lower class and rough. It surely wasn’t a slum, nevertheless, outsiders definitely would have considered some of us “white trash”.
Poor kids today.
Both the hardship of Maria’s life and my own experience helps me to consider the kids who today live in poorer pockets of the city, areas considered slums, or ghettos - and of course, those infamous trailer parks. All of those poor kids and their families - who, more often than not live in single parent homes. Today, when we hear of a drive-by shooting, or an innocent girl being shot while doing her homework - in her own house - some of us may have a tendency to dismiss the event as unfortunate, yet typical for that class of people. Some people have the ability to shake their heads in disgust, and pass it off as something that happened to “those people” in “that” part of town. This group may not be openly referred to as white trash; although unconsciously they might be regarded as ”low life”, poor immigrants, or simply under-acheivers - more politically correctly - members of the underclass. Viewing the situation from our respectable, affluent vantage point, not a few of us can dismiss the fact that crimes and misdemeanors are to be expected from “those” people.
I wonder if that wasn’t what the gentry of Maria Goretti’s locality may have first thought when she was murdered. Certainly her close neighbors knew she was a good girl, but did others know or even care? At least, right away? She wasn’t always that sweet picture book saint we see now, gazing up to heaven, carrying a bouquet of lilies around. To outsiders, she probably would have looked to be a scruffy little urchin, a coarse peasant girl. No doubt sweet, and perhaps pretty, at times edifying others by her cheerful unselfishness and piety, Maria would not have been anything near the social acceptbility of the upper class girls. She was just a poor peasant, a farm-hand’s daughter.
What happened to Maria Goretti happens to the poor kids of today all of the time. (Affluent kids some of the time.) Though Maria’s family was poor, she was raised in a devout, religious atmosphere of familial love, wherein morality and virtue was taught, along with a keen sense of responsibility and duty. Many kids today do not enjoy this benefit, nevertheless they are still kids - good or bad. Their economic poverty is nothing compared to their spiritual and moral poverty. Many are raised without any religion at all. Maria was blessed, most of the kids today are not.
St. Maria Goretti’s role today.
St Maria Goretti’s relevance today is so much more than her heroic martyrdom for purity, as noble and exalted as that is. It seems clear to me she is an example for every poor kid in our cities; sexualized and exploited by popular culture, victimized by poverty and violence, and maybe worse, marginalized by a remote and uncaring upper class.
What can we do about the poor kids of today however? We throw money at education, but that doesn’t seem to be working, and all the while poverty expands in our cities and suburbs, and these kids continue to be neglected. We see them with their pants down around their knees, and the girls look like tramps, both sexes pierced and tatooed, while we look away in disgust and do our best to ignore them. But they are still just kids - like St. Maria Goretti was.
I don’t have a solution, yet our kids desperately need our prayer, and our love - but never our rejection or contempt. St. Maria Goretti, pray for us.
July 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I remember as a Young Boy back in Ireland in the 50’s, there waa great devotion to St/ Martia goretti as the Time for her canonization drew near and she was proclaimed a Saint of the Church by Pope Pius X11(Eugenio Pacelli). If memory serves her atacker was present in St. Peter’s for the ceremony. Back then of Course. Communications were not as sophisticated as to-day and anybody that had the priviledge of Travelling to Rome were indeed blessed. To-Day it’s no Big Deal to Fly from Dublin, Cork or Belfast down to Rome especially with the same currency and the European Union which means no Pasports, Health Cards etc. I ask that the Saint of the day St. Maria Goretti will remember all of us before the throne of Our Heavenly Father. St. Maria Goretti, Pray for us!!!!!
July 6th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Terry,
Thanks for your kind words and prayers for my Dad, they are much appreciated.
I found this post of yours very interesting. I agree with you that the kids of today (and in every generation before and those yet to come) need our prayers and our support.
Young people in whatever generation tend to think that sex is something to experience at the earliest opportunity, that it’s ‘uncool’ to be a virgin beyond the teen years - I once agreed with them.
Now I believe I have a responsibility to raise my children to be aware that their sexuality is a gift and that maintaining their sexual purity is not something of which to be ashamed, but rather, to be prized and protected.
I myself, try to live a chaste life, to lead my children by example. I pray that they too will live lives of purity and that if God so wills for them to be married, that then, and only then, will they become sexually active.
I probably haven’t explained myself very well, it’s late and I’m tired, sorry.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
UK - Okay - I just got that at Mass this morning when I was praying for you - I can be rather thick at times.
Thanks for your comments - they read very well - my post doesn’t however. For some reason I was thinking today about the many kids who have to be parents due to s
some dysfunction of their moms and dads - I was really going there with St. Maria Goretti - the kids who are poor, neglected, the lower income level, whose parents are on drugs or drink, and the oldest child, often the girls, take charge - cleaning, cooking, sending siblings to school, etc., while attending school themselves. They become little adults.
And of course, because they are poor - they are often overlooked. I wrote too much as it is, but this was one of the points I wanted to make. I agree it is the kids of every age who need our prayers, but today it seems as if their situation is all the more tragic because of the relative prosperity of our western society, which hides much of the interior poverty. It is a subject far too complicated for a weblog post.
Thanks for your good comments, and be assured of my continued prayers for your dad.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I was inspired tonight to pray to St. Maria Goretti, as I sat in the vet clinic. I was reading Magnificat since the occasion kept me from Mass, and it reminded me today is her day. So I said a quick little prayer to her for help, and acknowledged that pet/finance problems aren’t “her area”, but that I’d appreciate her intercession just the same.
Well, I managed not to cry when given the bad news, that had to have come from her.
I hadn’t even made the connection to financial issues; I’m a white-trash girl myself, and heading back that way.
Thanks for the reminder; no wonder I was inspired to pray to her! The Holy Spirit sure knows what he is doing when he calls us to pray and ask for the intercession of certain saints.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Just because someone is poor does not mean they are “trash.” My grandfather’s family in Alabama were pretty poor, but as my Grandma always said: “The Strongs were poor, but they weren’t trash.” There are plenty of vulgar rich people who my dear grandmother would surely consider to be “white trash” by her standards. Maria Goretti’s family had manners, morals and dignity. They were simple and unsophisticated, but they were “classy” people. So was Padre Pio’s family. Such qualities have nothing to do with material things, nothing to do with money.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Elena - a very excellent and true point of view, one I’m in full agreement with. However, I think I was attempting to discuss here the attitudes often present amongst the contemporary affluent, materialistic, status conscious middle to upper middle class families, some of whom I have known and worked with, who think they are better than the poor I mentioned.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Yes, Terry, I understand and agree. But I love discussions about white trash and how it all has nothing to do with money.
Speaking of Padre Pio, technically his family were hereditary aristocrats. They had no money, but they owned lots of land.
St Joan of Arc’s family, the Darcs, were technically peasants, but they were prosperous and well-to-do. They were not pretentious but they expected high standards of behavior from their children.
St Bernadette’s family were peasants and dirt poor, most of the time. But Monsieur and Madame Soubirous never allowed their children to beg, even when they were starving. They had a lot of class. Maria Goretti’s family were of the same type.
The only reason I am going into this is that many Americans seem to have the socialist view of rich vs poor, putting people in categories, judging them by their material possessions and by how much money they have. History and a basic knowledge of the lives of the saints shows us that this view has nothing to do with reality.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:17 am
I forgot Bl Anna Maria Taigi’s husband. He was from a noble family, but he was a mean, lazy curmudgeon, who could barely support his family by working as a butler. Blessed Anna Maria had to have a great deal of patience.
July 7th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Elena - Thanks very much - we were in a way sying the same thing - you simply express it better - but you are a professional.
Thanks for your additional comments.
And of course I agree that the examples of the poor saints and their families reveals the dignity and nobility of the person, their goodness and virtue, of which Maria and her family were such a good example.
I wish I were a better writer!
July 7th, 2007 at 7:49 am
You are a wonderful writer, Terry.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I should not read your posts at midnight in future, I might understand them better then
(You prayed for me and mine at Mass, oh, that’s so lovely, thank you)
God Bless
p.s. So few people get the UK - Okay thing. Well done you!
July 7th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Great post, great saint.
When I was a single mom they built a new social housing project in my town and several friends encouraged me to put my name on the list. I refused because of my boys forever after would say they were from “that” part of town. I just wanted to live in a “regular” neighbourhood with intact familes. After all, my mom did that when she was on her own with me and my brother.
I sure hope that cycle is broken now.
Again, good post.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:19 am
I am a huge fan of Maria Goretti. She is the patron saint of two of my daughters. What is more courageous than to choose God over sin, death over life at the point of a knife? She experienced the most poignant moment of heroism I have ever heard described. After months of harassment by her attacker, in the midst of a life of crushing poverty, hardship and work - she was attacked by Allessandro and as he held the knife over her, she was offered the choice “Give in to me or die” She heroically chose death, a slow, agonizing death. She won a great victory, she triumphed over her foe. At the hospital where she underwent surgery without any anesthesia she forgave her attacker and joined her sufferings with those of Christ on the Cross. She died at the same moment the Passionist priests of the town sang vespers “Who is this who enters in garments all red?”
We must never tell our daughters to give in to attackers so as to save ones life! This is a terrible modern error! Fight, fight for the life of your soul! Never give in to impurity no matter the cost! Call on God and His angels as sure did Maria Goretti and He will give you the strength for the fight and the sacrifice!
She was placed in one of the highest places on Heaven, with the Virgin Martyrs - O Saint of Purity, Ora Pro Nobis!