St. Maria Goretti

Who they were

Maria was the daughter of destitute tenant farmers near Nettuno, keeping house at eleven after her father's death while her mother worked the fields. In July 1902 she was attacked by Alessandro Serenelli, the twenty year old son of the family sharing their building, who attempted to rape her and, when she resisted, stabbed her. She died the next day, having in her last hours explicitly forgiven him, saying that she wanted him in heaven with her.

What her forgiveness did is the rest of the story, and it is the part worth dwelling on. Alessandro was unrepentant for six years in prison, then experienced a dream of Maria handing him lilies. He woke changed, served his remaining twenty years as a model prisoner, and on release went first to Maria's mother to beg forgiveness. Maria has forgiven you, Assunta answered, how could I not? The two attended Mass together the next morning and received Communion side by side. He became a Capuchin lay gardener, and in 1950 was present, with Assunta, at Maria's canonization.

One thing must be said as plainly as the rest. Maria is not a lesson that victims must resist unto death, and no survivor's worth is measured against her story. Her sanctity is her forgiveness. The crime was entirely Alessandro's guilt, which his own converted life confessed for fifty years.

Why people turn to St. Maria Goretti

Survivors of assault, as patron and companion, on their own terms and at their own pace. Families who have lost someone to violence, for whom the Mass that Assunta and Alessandro attended together is either unimaginable or the only door; neither reading is pressed here. And the young, whose patron she formally is.

How to ask their intercession

There is nothing you have to say correctly here, and nothing you owe anyone. If you need someone now, RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673, staffed at all hours and free. Maria's forgiveness was her own gift and was never anybody's duty, least of all yours.