Maria Goretti
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Saint Maria Goretti | |
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| Virgin, martyr | |
| Born | October 16, 1890 |
| Died | July 6, 1902 |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Canonized | June 24, 1950 |
| Feast | July 6 |
| Attributes | Fourteen lilies, farmer clothing, sometimes a knife |
| Patron saint of | Crime victims, teenage girls, Modern Youth, Children of Mary |
Saint Maria Goretti (October 16, 1890 – July 6, 1902) is an Italian Roman Catholic virgin saint.
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[edit] Short biography
She was born as Maria Teresa Goretti (nicknamed "Marietta"), in Corinaldo (Province of Ancona), Italy, in 1890. She was Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini's second child. According to her family, she was very pious and sweet-tempered since childhood, helping as much as she could to raise her younger siblings.
She and her family moved to le Ferriere di Conca, near modern Latina, where they lived in a building they shared with another family, the Serenellis. With time, Maria grew up into a very pretty girl who looked older than she really was; soon, her teenaged neighbour Alessandro Serenelli became sexually obsessed with her, and approached her several times with lewd suggestions, which Maria rejected once and again.
[edit] Maria's death
The rape attempt took place when the two were alone in the house except for Maria's toddler sister Teresa, who was taking a nap. Alessandro attacked Maria when she was sewing at home, threatening her with a knife; when she would not yield to him, protesting about her not wanting to sin and warning Alessandro that he'd go to Hell if he raped her, Serenelli stabbed her 11 times. The injured but still-living Maria tried to reach the door, so Serenelli stabbed her 3 more times before running away.
Little Teresa awoke with the noise and started crying, and when Serenelli's father and Maria's mother came to check on the little girl they found the bleeding Maria and took her to the nearest hospital in Nettuno. The following day, after expressing forgiveness for her murderer and stating that she wanted to have him in heaven with her, Maria died of her injuries.
Alessandro Serenelli was sentenced to prison for his crime and remained unrepentant and uncommunicative from the world, for three years. One night, he had a dream of Maria offering him 14 lilies for the 14 times she was stabbed. Following this dream, he became deeply repentant. After his release from prison, Serenelli went to Maria's still-living mother, Assunta, and begged her forgiveness. She forgave him, and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side by side.
[edit] Canonization
On June 24, 1950, Pope Pius XII canonized Saint Maria Goretti as a virgin and martyr saint of the Roman Catholic Church. Maria's mother, nicknamed "Mamma Assunta" by her neighbors, was present at the ceremony; she was the first mother ever to attend the canonization ceremony of her child, along with her four remaining sons and daughters. Serenelli also was present at the canonization[1][2][3][4]. He became a Capuchin laybrother, living in a convent and working as its receptionist and gardener, and died peacefully in 1970.
Saint Maria Goretti's feast day is July 6. She's represented in media as a wavy-haired young girl in farmer clothes or a white dress, with a bouquet of lillies in her hands, and is sometimes counted among the ranks of the Passionist order since her spiritual formation was guided by the Passionists.
[edit] Controversy
The feminist movement has criticized the veneration of Maria Goretti and other females murdered in similar circumstances (like Blessed Pierina Morosini and Blessed Karolina Kózkówna, the "Maria Goretti of Poland"), on the grounds that it reinforces misogyny and violence against women through both the rebirth of the "better dead than raped" adage and the claim that Catholic church equals resistance to rape to sexual enjoyment and the Cardinal Sin of lust, showing how rape is both "eroticized and normalized in patriarchy." [5]
The Pensylvania law that states how rape victims must prove their physical resistence to rape so their rapists can be prosecuted is unnoficially called the "St. Maria Goretti law". [6]
[edit] Trivia
- In the 1949 Italian movie Cielo sulla palude (English title, "The sky over the marshes"), Maria Goretti is played by 15-year-old actress Ines Orsini.
- In the French movie Les Invasions Barbares by Denys Arcand, the dying main character Rémy reflects on a scene from Cielo sulla palude where Ines Orsini as Maria Goretti is seen wading in the ocean, and finds it arousing. [7]
- In November, 2002 two Catholic sisters from Michigan started a magazine dedicated to Maria Goretti, named Saint Maria's Messenger, targeted at pre-teen and teenage girls of Catholic formation.
[edit] External links
- Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us!
- Cielo sulla palude The movie about Maria Goretti, "Heaven over the marshes", in IMDB.
- A magazine dedicated to Saint Maria Goretti, targeted at girls ages ten through teen.
- "BETTER DEAD THAN R(AP)ED?: THE PATRIARCHAL RHETORIC DRIVING CAPITAL RAPE STATUTES". By Corey Rayburn. Article that uses Maria Goretti's case, along with others, as an example of how society sees the whole issue of rape. The exact allusions are located here and here.
