Maria Carmela Giannetto

On January 14, 1922, Carmela went to the Santa Brigida Institute in Messina, where she met the Venerable Brigida Maria Postorino, founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate. This meeting confirmed her vocation. The very next day, January 15, despite opposition from her family, she left her father's house to begin her postulancy. On April 17, 1922, she began her novitiate in Reggio Calabria. On October 7 of the same year, she received the religious habit and took the name Sister Maria Francesca. However, she went through a deep spiritual crisis, doubting her aptitude for religious life. On New Year's Eve 1922, faced with this distress, the founder sent her to reflect in the community of Catona. On January 9, 1923, she temporarily left the habit and returned to her family to discern. After only eight days, fully convinced of her calling, she returned to the novitiate and was authorized to wear the habit again three months later. Admitted to profession on April 23, 1924, she was sent to Rome where the congregation was opening a hostel for pilgrims of the 1925 Holy Year, located on Viale Mazzini. It was there that she pronounced her first vows on March 25, 1925. Due to her spiritual maturity, she was entrusted with the role of assistant to the postulants. It was also in Rome that the first symptoms of tuberculosis manifested. In 1928, faced with the deterioration of her health, the General Council of the institute requested a dispensation from the Holy See to allow her to pronounce her perpetual vows early. To try to treat her, her superiors sent her successively to Catona in July 1929, then to Menfi in September. After a brief stay with her family in November, she was admitted to perpetual profession in January 1930. On the advice of doctors, she was sent back to her native home in Camaro Superiore to receive appropriate care. She received the Viaticum there on February 4, 1930, from the hands of the parish priest Don Pietro Profera, and passed away holily on February 16, 1930, at the age of 27.

Upon her death, Sister Maria Francesca requested to be buried with the book of constitutions of her institute, her rosary, a palm, and a lily. Eleven months later, during a canonical exhumation, her body was found intact, and the lily as well as the palm appeared mysteriously fresh. On January 15, 1989, her remains were transferred from the communal cemetery to the chapel of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate in Messina (via Borelli), becoming a place of pilgrimage for many faithful. The cause for beatification was officially opened at the diocesan level on May 13, 1989. The diocesan inquiry closed on February 16, 1992 (the first phase having concluded on October 24, 1991). The Positio on the heroic nature of her virtues was submitted in Rome in 2004.

On November 23, 2020, Pope Francis received in audience the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic nature of the virtues of the Servant of God Maria Francesca Giannetto (born Carmela). She was subsequently declared Venerable. The official recognition of a miracle attributed to her intercession is now required to pave the way for her beatification.

The spirituality of the Venerable Maria Francesca Giannetto is centered on total abandonment to Divine Providence and a burning love for Jesus in the Eucharist, before whom she spent long hours in adoration. She constantly carried a copy of the Gospel in her pocket so that she could meditate on the Word of God at any moment. Her life, though brief, testifies to a joyful acceptance of suffering and illness, which she considered an "interior, silent, and hidden martyrdom" to unite herself with the Passion of Christ. Her final words summarize her ideal of life: « Amate Gesù: gli amori della terra, non ordinati a lui, sono vani. Venite nella volontà di Dio, specialmente nelle cose avverse, amate il sacrifice; la via del sacrifice è la via del cielo » (Love Jesus: the loves of the earth, if not ordered to Him, are vain. Enter into the will of God, especially in adversity, love sacrifice; the way of sacrifice is the way to heaven). Today, her memory remains alive in Messina, particularly in her native district of Camaro, where a municipal nursery school and a street bear her name.