IT MAKES SENSE TO ME
By Larry Peterson
The Roman
Martyrology of the Catholic Church has thousands of
names on its pages. However, that huge book may
need to find space for the very first American who was matryred on American soil for being Catholic and daring to
defend her honor. Her name is Jamie Schmidt and
she gave her life for Jesus in St. Louis, Missouri.
Most of us have heard of St. Maria Goretti, the eleven-year-old who died “In
Defensum Castitatis” (In Defense of
Purity). Maria was trying to fight off the advances of a twenty-year-old neighbor, Alessandro Serenelli.
He became so enraged at her that he stabbed her fourteen times. Before Maria died, she forgave her attacker. He spent 30
years in prison and, touched by the grace of God, was present at the
canonization of the young girl he had murdered.
Jamie Schmidt was an average, 53-year-old, Catholic woman
who lived in High Ridge, Missouri a town about 25 miles outside St. Louis. She
was married to her high-school sweetheart, and
they had three children. The Schmidt family belonged to St. Anthony of Padua
Church and Jamie sang in the choir. She was also a member of the St. Vincent de
Paul Society, worked organizing and holding women’s retreats, and was always ready
to help anyone in need. She even made and distributed rosaries. Ironically, it
was her Rosary ministry that brought her face to face with evil.
It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when Jamie stopped
into the Church Supply Warehouse in St.
Louis for needed rosary supplies. There were two other women in the store.
Jamie was no sooner inside when a man came in and began looking around. He said
to the woman at the counter that he had forgotten his credit card and had to go
out to the car to get it. He was actually
casing the place.
Jamie went over to the section where the supplies she
needed were located. It was then that the
man returned. This time he was brandishing a gun. He told the three women to get
to the back of the store and that “they had better do as they were told.”
He lined them up against the wall and proceeded to
molest the first woman who, frightened for her life, gave in to the man’s
advances. He did the same to the second woman who also just submitted,
terrified for her life. Then he turned to Jamie. He demanded that she take off her clothes.
Jamie had been witness to the depraved acts this disgusting
man had inflicted on the two other women. She was surely terrified too, but the Holy Spirit
must have been with her. (The two women gave this account to police); She stared at the man and, standing tall, said in a firm voice, “In
the name of God, I will not take my clothes off.”
Buoyed by her Catholic
faith and refusing to submit to an immoral, sexual assault, she had invoked the
name of her God and said categorically to her assailant, “NO!” He shot her in the head at point blank range. Jamie
Schmidt crumpled to the floor. The man ran from the store while one of the women
quickly called 911.
Jamie did not die instantly. As she lay mortally
wounded, the two women could hear her saying ever so softly the “Our
Father.” She knew her life was slipping away,
but she was thinking of her God and
invoking His name. It was reported that
even during the ride in the ambulance Jamie, barely audible, kept praying. She was still praying when her last breath
left her body.
A short time later a man by the name of Thomas Bruce,
was captured by police. He was the perpetrator and was arrested for murder, sodomy, and other charges. He now awaits
trial for the crimes with which he has been
charged.
St. Maria Goretti, age 12, refused a similar assault and was stabbed to
death in 1902. Blessed Pierina Morosini, age
26, refused a similar assault and was beaten to death with a rock in 1957.
Jamie Schmidt, age 53, refused and was
shot to death in 2018. These three women, their lives spread over a century
apart, share an unexpected sisterhood.
Having died “In Defensum
Castitatis” Jamie’s cause for beatification should move along quickly. What happened to her and St. Maria and
Blessed Pierina can happen to any of us at any time. If suddenly we were asked
to defend our faith with our lives hanging
in the balance, what would we do?
