Optional Memorial
Saint Maria Goretti
- Feast day
- July 06
- Origin
- Italian
Patron of
- youth and victims of assault
Life
Maria Goretti (1890-1902) was an eleven-year-old girl from a poor farming family near Nettuno, Italy, who was stabbed to death while resisting an attempted sexual assault. On her deathbed she forgave her attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, who later repented and attended her canonization by Pope Pius XII in 1950. She is venerated as a patron of youth and of victims of assault.
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