Isabel Cristina Mrad Campos

The life of Isabel Cristina is that of an ordinary young student, yet one deeply inhabited by faith. She studied at the College of the Immaculate Conception, where she distinguished herself by her kindness and intelligence. Her great dream was to become a pediatrician in order to care for underprivileged children, even considering going as a missionary to Africa.

In April 1982, at the age of 20, she moved to Juiz de Fora to take a preparatory course (pré-vestibular) with the goal of entering medical school. There, she shared an apartment with her brother, Paulo Roberto Mrad Campos. In this new city, she maintained an intense spiritual life, attending Mass daily and spending long hours in Eucharistic adoration at the Church of the Cenacle (Igreja do Cenáculo), where the Blessed Sacrament was permanently exposed.

On September 1, 1982, while she was preparing her apartment, a worker named Maurílio Almeida Oliveira, who had come to assemble a piece of furniture, attempted to rape her. Isabel Cristina resisted heroically to defend her chastity and dignity. Faced with her resistance, the attacker struck her on the head with a chair, tied her up, gagged her, and tore her clothes. Before her stubborn refusal to yield, he inflicted fifteen stab wounds upon her, causing her death. The autopsy would later confirm that she had succeeded in preserving her virginity and that no penetration had taken place. Her lifeless body was discovered that same evening by her brother upon his return.

The tragic death of Isabel Cristina immediately sparked deep emotion and popular devotion in Brazil, where she was quickly compared to Saint Maria Goretti for her martyrdom of purity. The faithful, touched by her example of Christian life and her heroic death, began to seek her intercession. The cause for beatification was officially opened on January 26, 2001, in Barbacena, within the Archdiocese of Mariana, under the leadership of Archbishop Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida, following the receipt of the nihil obstat from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on November 18, 2000. The diocesan inquiry into her life and martyrdom was closed on September 1, 2009, the anniversary of her death. The file was then transmitted to Rome, where the validity of the inquiry was decreed on December 3, 2010.

On October 27, 2020, during an audience granted to Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Isabel Cristina Mrad Campos, killed in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith) for having defended her chastity and her dignity as a woman.

The solemn beatification ceremony was celebrated on December 10, 2022, at the Parque de Exposições in Barbacena. The Mass was presided over by Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis, Archbishop Emeritus of Aparecida, the official representative of Pope Francis, in the presence of thousands of the faithful, numerous bishops, and members of her family, notably her brother Paulo Roberto. The following day, during the Angelus prayer at the Vatican, Pope Francis hailed the new Blessed as a "heroic example" for young people.

Isabel Cristina's spirituality was based on a simple, joyful, and concrete faith, nourished by the Eucharist, regular confession, the recitation of the Rosary, and devotion to the Virgin Mary. She also frequented the Visitation Monastery in Barbacena, drawing from it a love for silence and contemplative prayer.

Her legacy is particularly vibrant within the Vincentian Family and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which see in her a model of active charity and self-giving. In her private notebooks, she was accustomed to writing phrases such as "Smile, Jesus loves you" (Sorria, Jesus te ama), testifying to her Christian joy of living. Today, she is considered a patroness and a model for students, young people, and all those who commit themselves to living the virtue of purity. Her relics rest in the chapel dedicated to her at the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Piedade in Barbacena, which has become an important place of pilgrimage.