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Saint Maria Goretti

Virgin and Martyr

Feast Day
July 6
Life
1890–1902
Canonized
1950
Born
Corinaldo, Marches, Kingdom of Italy

Saint Maria Teresa Goretti was born at Corinaldo in the Italian Marches on October 16, 1890, the third of seven children of Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini, peasant farmers. The family moved to the Pontine Marshes south of Rome in 1897, sharing a farmhouse and tenant labor with the Serenelli family. After her father's death from malaria in 1900, Maria, not yet ten, took over much of the housekeeping while her mother worked in the fields.

On July 5, 1902, the eleven-year-old Maria was alone in the house when Alessandro Serenelli, the twenty-year-old son of her father's former partner, attempted to rape her. She resisted, crying out, No, no! It is a sin. God does not want it. Serenelli stabbed her fourteen times with an awl. She survived for nearly twenty hours at the Orsenigo hospital in Nettuno; before dying on July 6, 1902, she explicitly forgave her attacker and expressed the wish that he be with her in heaven.

Alessandro Serenelli, sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment, remained unrepentant for several years. After a vision of Maria in his cell, he was completely converted, sought pardon publicly upon his release in 1929, and ended his life as a lay tertiary at a Capuchin friary, dying in 1970. He testified at the beatification cause and stood beside Assunta Goretti at the canonization.

Pope Pius XII beatified Maria on April 27, 1947, and canonized her on June 24, 1950, in Saint Peter's Square, in the presence of her mother, the only canonization at which a saint's mother has been present. Her body rests in the crypt of the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie e Santa Maria Goretti at Nettuno.

In his canonization homily Pope Pius XII called Maria Goretti the Saint Agnes of the twentieth century and held her up as a model of Christian chastity and of forgiveness for one's enemies. The Catechism cites her as an example among the martyrs whose witness extends to teaching by their death. Her cult, especially among Catholic youth movements and survivors of sexual violence, has spread worldwide; her relics travel on extended pilgrimages on the anniversaries of her death.

Patronages

youth · young women · victims of sexual assault · purity · Children of Mary

Catholic Churches Named After Saint Maria Goretti

20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Maria Goretti's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:

Sources