DESPERATELY SEEKING JOAN - Woman behind the hype - Joan of Arc

Commonweal, March 10, 2000 by Mary Gordon

They question her faith and her fortitude, saying that these were present only when things were going well for her. They understand that she was badly treated by those who condemned her (some of the consultors use this as an argument against proceeding with Joan's case, since it will only air the church's historical dirty laundry), but they contend that her desire to escape from prison, the complaints with which she received her sentence of death, her tears and dread when she was brought to the stake, although understandable and even poignant in human terms, are evidence that she did not possess saintly fortitude.

They repeatedly assert that because of her stubborn refusal to submit the question of her voices' validity to the church fathers who were judging her, she is not a model for the faithful. They question whether she isn't just a military or a nationalist hero. One consultor wonders that, since France has been such a source of poisonous ideas and so much trouble to the church, maybe her cause wasn't a good one. Wouldn't the church, he suggests, have been better off if France had ceased to exist? They say that she is different from the Old Testament heroines- Judith and Esther-with whom she was compared, because their works were a direct preparation for the coming of Christ whereas hers were only rooted in the fate of one country.

Most important, they say that she is not a martyr. They repeat the evidence that she did not want to die, that she in fact tried to prevent her death, particularly by her abjuration. They compare her to the earlier Christian martyrs, who embraced death and wouldn't have lifted a finger to keep it back. They suggest that, had those saints behaved like Joan, we would have no models of perfect martyrdom.

But Pope Pius X and the College of Cardinals wanted Joan; they dismissed any negative evidence. Perhaps the true miracle of Joan's canonization is that the church, in its desire to create a saint who would bring the wandering sheep back into the fold, who would provide a simple and unassailable enough force to counteract the lure of modern pleasure seeking and free thought, put aside their narrow standards. They forgot their devotion to obedience and conformity and created a saint who is full of the contradictions and imperfections that make, if not a saint, then a great and lovable human being. The devil's advocates, unlike the admiring artists who did their part to insure for Joan a different kind of immortality, understood her changeability and its implications. In this they honored her complexity with a clear gaze, clearer than many of those who loved her for their own reasons.

Their understanding was silenced, and the church, like everyone else who was to use Joan for his or her own needs, presented us with another oversimplification. But a look at her in the clear light of her words and actions creates an image not of singleness, but of fascinating complexity. She was a virgin and she died for what she believed, but she does not fit the type of the virgin martyr. Ardent, impatient, boastful, resistant, implacable, she is like all great saints, a personality of genius.