Religion: Killing for Chastity

Is a woman justified in killing to protect her chastity? Last week Rome heard a Jesuit priest take the air to answer the question with a resounding yes.

The Rev. Virginio Rotondi, a scholar who discusses religious questions on television, was talking about a case that had excited all Italy last month. Set upon by five teenagers who tried, unsuccessfully to rape her, pretty Alba Sbrighi, 19, had stabbed and killed one of her assailants with a rusty jackknife. Popular opinion was solidly behind Alba, who is now at liberty pending trial for murder. (The four remaining youths who attacked her are in jail.) But opinion was divided on Jesuit Rotondi's talk interpreting Alba' act in terms of Christian principle.

It is right, he said, "to defend oneself against an unjust aggressor, even to the point of killing him, when there is no other way of saving one's life. That which holds true in defense of one's life also holds true in the case of un just aggression against the purity of a woman ... I would say that the girl in voked a right and fulfilled a duty. I would add that Christian morality certainly would have condemned her had she re lented and allowed herself to be carried into the woods."