This story on St Maria Goretti is part of a new series produced by The Catholic Leader on the lives of the Saints. We want to bring you accurate and uplifting stories on who our canonised saints are, how they loved God in life and the good works they achieved.
SAINT Maria Goretti was murdered at the age of 11 and is the patron saint of rape survivors and young people.
Her story is a witness to Christ’s transformative forgiveness in the face of abject suffering.
Maria was born the third of seven children into a poor, religious Italian family on October 16, 1890.
Her parents, Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini, moved around the countryside to find larger land to cultivate for their growing family.
Eventually, they went into business with another family, Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro.
In 1900, both families moved and found work under Count Attilio Mazzoleni where they shared a house.
The Goretti’s father, Luigi, was stricken by malaria and later typhoid, meningitis and pneumonia before he died only months after moving into the new house.
Assunta was devastated by the loss of her husband and had to find ways for her family to cope without a father to work the fields.
Maria often told her distraught mother that “we children will soon grow up” and “God will provide”.
Assunta eventually decided to remain in business with the Serenelli family.
At the same time, Maria, who was 10 years old, had often expressed her desire to receive First Holy Communion.
Assunta, who was distressed with financial matters, kept postponing and asking how she could receive First Holy Communion if she had not learned the catechism.
Maria found ways to learn after she finished her chores and in only 11 months, she knew the catechism.
She received First Holy Communion with her brother Angelo on June 16, 1901.
It was over the next year that the Serenelli’s son Alessandro, eight years her elder, began harbouring feelings for Maria, which later degenerated into blind passion.
In early June 1902, Alessandro made lewd requests to Maria, who rejected him and fled in tears.
He threatened to kill her if she told anyone what he had done.
A few days later, he tried again and was rejected a second time.
He planned on killing her if she refused him a third time and had prepared a 24cm long awl as his murder weapon.
He terrorised Maria over the next month, barking orders at her around the homestead and scolding her for any nonsense.
She told her mother multiple times not to leave her alone, but her mother failed to grasp the meaning of her insistence.
Maria was responsible for cooking, sewing and cleaning while her mother and siblings worked the fava bean fields with Alessandro.
On July 5, 1902, Maria was sewing one of Alessandro’s shirts, by his orders, and watching over her two-year-old sister, Teresa.
Alessandro, who had planned out his attack, asked Assunta to drive the cart for a little while he went into the house for a pressing matter.
He went into the house and ordered Maria to come in, but she did not move or respond.
“I brutally grabbed her by the arm and, as she was resisting, dragged her into the kitchen, which was the first room when entering the house,” Alessandro said in a confession.
“With my foot I closed the door and secured the latch.
“She immediately realised that I wanted to assault her, as attempted two previous times, and she told me – ‘No, no, God does not want this. If you do this you go to hell’.
“Seeing that she was determined to reject my brutal cravings, I went on a rampage, took the bradawl and began to stab her in the stomach, as if I was crushing corn.
“As I was stabbing her, she struggled to defend herself and repeatedly invoked the name of her mother and cried out – ‘God, God, I’m dying, Mum, Mum’.
“I remember seeing blood on her clothes and leaving her while she was still squirming.
“I understood that I had mortally wounded her.”
He cast the weapon aside and went into his bedroom, locking the door and throwing himself on his bed.
Despite her gruesome wounds, Maria found the strength to stand, open the door and call out to Alessandro’s father – “Giovanni, come upstairs, Alessandro killed me”.
There were 14 stab wounds in her body but she would live another 24 hours.
She was rushed by ambulance to Fatebenefratelli Hospital and doctors saw little hope for her but attempted surgery.
The surgery, which lasted two hours, was excruciating as it was performed without any sedation.
Maria’s mother spent the next day with her, along with a nurse and two Sisters of the Poor.
The sisters suggested Maria should pray and she did, fervently.
The local archpriest saw a significant deterioration in Maria’s condition and wanted to administer Holy Communion.
The priest told her about how Jesus forgave his executioners, which is when he asked her, “Maria, do you also want to forgive your murderer?”
“Yes, for the love of Jesus, I forgive him and I want him to be in paradise with me,” she said.
She received Holy Communion and received her last rites.
As her condition worsened, Maria drifted in and out of delirium, reliving the attack and calling out to her parents.
The delusions became more frequent and she suddenly shouted – “What a beautiful lady. Can’t you see her? Look. She is so beautiful, full of light and flowers”.
Then, Maria died.
Already, the archpriest lauded her as a saint and people were already calling her a martyr.
Her death became national news after the priest gave two speeches about her, and her funeral was attended by crowds.
She was canonised 48 years later on June 24, 1950.
In attendance at her canonisation was her killer, who had undergone his own spiritual transformation in his many years in prison.
After his release from prison, Alessandro visited Assunta and begged for her forgiveness.
She forgave him and the pair attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side by side.
Alessandro prayed to St Maria Goretti every day and became a lay brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, living in a monastery as a receptionist and gardener until he died in 1970.
St Maria’s feast day is July 6, the day of her death, and her body lies in the Basilica of Our Lady of Graces and St Maria Goretti in Nettuno, south of Rome.
