Maria Goretti

The episode that established the veneration of Maria Goretti took place on July 5, 1902. While she was alone at the family home, Alessandro Serenelli, the neighbor with whom the Gorettis shared the house, threatened her to force her into an act she considered gravely sinful. Maria resisted with energy, opposing his advances by stating that it was a sin. According to hagiographic sources, she told him that God did not want this and that he would be damned. Furious at her refusal, Alessandro struck her multiple times with an awl, inflicting numerous wounds. Found in agony, she was taken to the hospital in Nettuno, where surgeons could not save her. Before dying on July 6, 1902, she declared that she forgave her attacker and expressed the desire to meet him one day in Heaven. It is this conjunction of a death in defense of chastity and an explicit pardon granted to the murderer that made her figure, from the time of the canonical process, a testimony of purity and mercy.

The holiness recognized in Maria Goretti stems less from external works than from the radical nature of her moral testimony. A pious child, she was described by those close to her as particularly gentle and diligent in her faith. In the tradition of the Church, she is venerated as a martyr of purity, having preferred, according to the sources, to risk death rather than consent to what she held to be a grave sin. But her figure is distinguished above all by the forgiveness she granted to her murderer on her deathbed. This forgiveness had a concrete legacy: Alessandro Serenelli, sentenced to thirty years of imprisonment, experienced a conversion in prison, which he attributed to a dream in which Maria appeared to him. Released after twenty-seven years of detention, he went to ask for forgiveness from Assunta, Maria's mother, who granted it to him. Later becoming a lay brother with the Capuchins, he publicly bore witness to the repentance that the victim had inspired in him. This turnaround reinforced the young girl's reputation for holiness and inscribed her within a spirituality of forgiveness.

The beatification process recognized the martyrdom of Maria Goretti, who died in defense of her chastity. She was beatified on April 27, 1947, by Pope Pius XII. Three years later, on June 24, 1950, the same pope canonized her. The ceremony, which gathered approximately half a million faithful according to sources, took place for the first time in the open air, in Saint Peter's Square, due to the large turnout; the saint's mother, Assunta Goretti, attended, an exceptional event at the time for a mother to be present at the canonization of her child. According to several accounts, Alessandro Serenelli, her former attacker who had converted, also followed the event. Pius XII presented Maria as a model of purity for the youth of the 20th century. Her liturgical memorial is inscribed in the Roman calendar on July 6, the anniversary of her death. The saint's relics are kept in the crypt of the Passionist sanctuary in Nettuno, dedicated to Our Lady of Graces and Saint Maria Goretti, which remains a place of pilgrimage.

Maria Goretti is among the youngest canonized saints of the Catholic Church, which has strongly contributed to her popularity. She is invoked as the patroness of youth and purity, and her example has been widely disseminated, particularly among adolescents and youth movements. Her story, combining fidelity to moral conscience and the forgiveness offered to her aggressor, has made her a reference figure in the pastoral care of forgiveness and reconciliation; she is also invoked by people who have suffered violence. Her sanctuary in Nettuno, maintained by the Passionists, where her relics rest, remains an important center of devotion, as does her hometown of Corinaldo, which preserves her memory. Numerous churches and institutions bear her name throughout the world. Her canonization in 1950 left a lasting mark on the popular piety of the mid-20th century, and her cult remains alive today, as evidenced by the commemorations surrounding the anniversaries of her death and canonization.