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Saint Maria Goretti
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.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Maria's death 3 Canonization 4 Controversy 5 Places named after Maria Goretti 6 Trivia 7 External links

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. By the time she was six, her family had become so poor that they were forced to give up their farm, move, and work for other farmers. Soon, Maria's Father became sick. He died when Maria was nine. Her brother, mother and sisters would work in the fields and Maria would cook, sew, and keep house. It was a hard life, but the family was very close. They shared a deep love for God and the faith. 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.

On July 5, 1902, finding twelve-year old Maria alone sewing, with her toddler sister, Teresa, sleeping nearby, Alessandro Serenelli attempted to force himself on the girl; however, she would not submit, protesting that what he wanted to do was a sin and warning Alessandro that he'd go to Hell if he raped her. Serenelli at first choked Maria, but when she insisted she would rather die than submit to him, he 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.

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. She underwent surgery without anesthesia, but her injuries were already beyond anything the doctors could do. The following day, twenty hours after the attack, having expressed forgiveness for her murderer and stating that she wanted to have him in heaven with her, Maria died of her injuries.

Alessandro Serenelli was captured shortly after Maria's death. Originally, he was going to be sentenced to death, but since he was a minor at that time the sentence was commuted for 30 years in prison. He remained unrepentant and uncommunicative from the world, for three years. One night, however, he had a dream of Maria offering him 14 lilies for the 14 times she was stabbed. Following this dream, he became deeply repentant^{[citation needed]}.

After his release, Serenelli went to Maria's still-living mother, Assunta, and begged her forgiveness. She forgave him, saying that if Maria had forgiven him on her deathbed then she couldn't do less, and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side by side^{[citation needed]}.

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.

Some members of the feminist movement have criticized the veneration of Maria Goretti and other "martyrs of chastity" (like Blessed Pierina Morosini, Blessed Karolina Kózkówna aka the "Maria Goretti of Poland" and Blessed Albertina Berkenbrock), on the grounds that the Church reinforces misogyny, sexism and physical/psychological violence against women through:

• support of the "better dead than raped" adage;
• the stigmatization of women who either have survived rape attempts or who have chosen to live sexually "liberated" lives;
• the equation of rape with sexual enjoyment and the cardinal sin of lust.

According to them, this phenomenon as a whole shows how rape is both "eroticized and normalized in patriarchy." [5]

However, according to her defenders, St. Maria Goretti is not venerated because of the situation that caused her death itself, but for "her heroic virtue, her faith, unwillingness to sin, and desire to forgive her perpetrator", all of this ultimately leading to Serenelli's redemption.

The Pennsylvania law that states (or stated) that rape victims must prove their physical resistance to rape so their rapists can be prosecuted is unofficially called the "St. Maria Goretti law". [6]

In 1985, the journalist Giordano Bruno Guerri wrote Povera Santa, povero assassino: la vera storia di Maria Goretti (Poor saint, poor murderer: the true story of Maria Goretti), a biography of Maria where he claims that her beatification process was more of a publicity stunt to protest for the sexual conduct of the USA troops stationed in Italy after WWII and questioned Alessandro and Maria's true roles in the story. [7]

• St. Maria Goretti School in Schiller Park, Illinois, United States (Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago)

• Saint Maria Goretti Roman Catholic Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

• Saint Maria Goretti and Saint John Neumann High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Saint Maria Goretti High School in (Hagerstown), (Maryland)

• Santa Maria Goretti Secondary School in Tarxien, Malta

• St. Maria Goretti Elementary School in Arlington, TX

• St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church and School in Westfield, IN

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• 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 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.

• Friends of Maria Goretti
• 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.
• A problem like Maria (Goretti) Blog entry commenting Maria Goretti's role in her own death.
• Sex or death? A thread in the Catholic Forums regarding Maria Goretti.