Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
Home - Spirituality and Being - Morals & Ethics - Catholic Suttee
Catholic Suttee
Posted on May 19, 2004 in Morals & Ethics Myths & Mysticism
Once, in the distant past, a wife so loved her husband that she threw herself on the flames of his funeral pyre. The act amazed those who watched. Such love! Such devotion! Other women imitated her passion.
Then it became a custom and families began throwing unwilling women upon the fire.
Suttee was not curbed until the British outlawed it during their colonialization of India. (I’ll count that as a good deed. Sometimes even imperialists manage to wreak one.) The fashion became a demand, an expectation whose force could not be stopped without a dramatic intervention by somebody.
What this leads to is consideration of the canonization of Gianna Beretta Molla, a 39 year old Italian pediatrician who refused to have an abortion even though giving birth to her daughter would kill her:
When she was pregnant with her fourth child, Molla was diagnosed with a tumour in her uterus. She was told that in order to survive, she would have to terminate the pregnancy.
For Molla, the answer was clear. “If a decision must be made between my life and the child’s, don’t hesitate. I insist you choose the child’s. Save it,” she’s been quoted as saying.
Gianna’s sacrifice is noble, but I dread that her canonization could become a fetter on women. What about other women facing life-threatening pregnancies? Will it become expected of them that they carry it through to term even if it kills them (and, perhaps, the child, too)? It’s also an obvious change in Vatican policy regarding abortion, namely that when the mother’s life is in danger from carrying a child she may choose to abort. Now the Pope seems to be saying “No, she must carry the child regardless. If it kills her, it kills her.”
I say this: When martyrdom is chosen because of social pressure and not because of personal devotion, it becomes murder. Any person of faith who insists that others follow Molla’s example has abandoned compassion in favor of empty religiosity.
Send email comments, please.
Thank you to Andrew of Byte Back for pointing out this story.
