Contemporary Western perspectives on purity are influenced by the virginal existence of the Catholic martyr, St. Agnes of Rome. Our investigation has been driven by the desire to disrupt these ideals through the creation of subjunctive histories.

In deconstructing texts and narratives within the Catholic doctrine, we have interrogated the ways its teachings are treated as absolute. The process of othering is inherent in Biblical texts concerning impurity, which fail to contemplate the ideas of tolerance, acceptance, salvation, and liberation conveyed within other teachings. Agnes’ narrative, along with that of many other virginal martyrs, has influenced ideals surrounding female purity.

If the body is understood in parallel with the Garden of Eden, each person shall resist temptation and remain untouched–as was the perfect paradise before mankind’s state of innocence was tainted by the first sinful act. We propose an altered doctrine composed of prayers and hymns presenting Agnes as a new icon, central to the Catholic faith–reconceptualising purity. For the name Agnes, derived from the Greek word ‘hagne’, translates as pure, sacred, and chaste.

Here we reinstate more embracing values within the Church’s ideology, reforming Catholicism to become a more utopian belief with the potential to prevail within a modern society and promote a more egalitarian faith.