It is the symbol of purity defended at the cost of one’s life after an attempted rape. She died at 12 years old, was beatified in 1947 and proclaimed a saint in 1950 by the Pope Pius XII during that Holy Year. His killer, Alessandro Serenelliwas sentenced to 30 years in prison. He repented and converted only after dreaming of Mary who told him he would reach Heaven. When he was released from prison after 27 years he asked the girl’s mother for forgiveness.
The poor family in the marshes of the Agro Pontino
Maria Goretti, born in Corinaldo (Ancona) on 16 October 1890 and baptized on the same day, was then confirmed, according to the custom of the times at a young age, on 4 October 1896 when Bishop Giulio Boschi arrived on a pastoral visit to the village. In 1897, the parents Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini who, in addition to their eldest daughter Maria, had four other children, being agricultural laborers and struggling to live daily with their large family, they decided to find work elsewhere; while many fellow villagers attempted the adventure of emigration to the Americas, they chose to move to the Agro Pontino in Lazio, which being infested by malaria, very few chose to move there.
They arrived first on the estate of Senator Scelsi in Paliano, as sharecroppers together with another family already resident, the Serenelli, also of Marche origin, composed only of father and son, the mother having been dead for some time. Then relations with the owner deteriorated, and the Serenelli and Goretti families had to leave Paliano and fortunately found, still as sharecroppers, another place to live on the estate of Count Lorenzo Mazzoleni in Ferriere di Conca, in the Pontine Marshes; area which, before the reclamation, which began in 1925 and was completed only in 1939, served as a natural dam between the northern part and the immense marsh to the south; it was certainly not a healthy place, because in the summer it was invaded by mosquitoes and malaria; quinine, the only effective drug, was mainly used for therapeutic purposes, but did not serve the preventive purpose.
The agreement with the Serenelli family
While her parents worked in the backbreaking work in the fields, Maria took care of the household chores, keeping the farmhouse in order and looking after her younger siblings. After a few years, on May 6, 1900, her father did not return home, struck down by malaria on the edge of the swamp. Maria was then 10 years old; he began to comfort his mother who was left alone with her family and with a job to do that was beyond her strength; although the harvest was good that year, the family remained in debt to Count Mazzoleni for sharecropping rights, amounting to 15 lire at the time.
The owner, after having invited the mother to leave that job and the house, because it was impossible to maintain the working relationship linked to a demanding market and an abundant and safe harvest; but following mother Assunta’s desperate request to stay, because with five children she had nowhere to go, the count agreed as long as he joined the Serenellis in staying, who lived in the same farmhouse and cultivated other land.
The solution seemed ideal, the Serenelli father and son cultivated the fields and Assunta looked after the children and the two houses, in addition to the work on the farmyard; while Maria dedicated herself to selling eggs and pigeons in distant Nettuno, transporting water that wasn’t in the house like today, preparing breakfasts for workers in the fields, mending clothing. He had no longer been able to go to school, which he already attended occasionally; it was defined by the people of the surrounding area “an angel of a daughter”; she recited the rosary, she was very religious, as was the whole family. He had insisted on making his First Communion when he was less than eleven years old, instead of twelve as was the custom then; with great sacrifices he managed to attend catechism, and so in May 1902 he was able to receive the Eucharist.
Relationships deteriorate
Until then his was a life of hardship, hard work, sacrifices, a few Masses which he attended in the church of nearby Conca, today Borgo Montello, but which closed from June to September, when the Mazzoleni counts left to escape malaria and mosquitoes that proliferated in the heat. Then, sacrificing hours to sleep, he went to Mass in Campomorto, several kilometers away. Meanwhile, relations between Serenelli the father and Assunta Goretti deteriorated, as he, being a widower, soon made it clear to her that if he wanted to eat her and her family, she had to submit to his not exactly honest requests. Since Assunta was not willing to give in, Serenelli began to check everything, even the eggs in the henhouse and to pass her food with an eyedropper.. Meanwhile, Maria, having reached the age of twelve, began to develop physically, becoming good-looking, but her soul was simple and pure and she had not had time to dream about her future, all busy helping with work, supporting and encouraging her mother, and looking after her little brothers. Serenelli’s son, Alexanderhe had meanwhile reached the age of 18, with a robust physique he was the pride of his father, not only because he knew how to work hard in the fields, but, something rare in those times among farmers, he knew how to read and write; when he went to town, he always returned with some unsavory magazine, which when brought home, aroused Assunta’s protests, but her father justified it by saying that he had to practice reading. Alessandro now looked at Maria with different eyes than a few years earlier and began to try to make particular approaches, undermining her several times, always rejected by the girl; one day he openly made some sinful proposals and when Maria refused, fearing that she would talk about it in the family, he threatened her with death if she did so. In order not to aggravate the already tense relations between the two families, Maria remained silent, remaining amazed by the situation which she did not understand, because she had always considered Alessandro as a brother.
July 5, 1902: the attempted rape and the pardon
The July 5, 1902 the Serenellis and the Gorettis were busy unhusking the dried broad beans and Maria, sitting on the landing overlooking the threshing floor, was mending young Alessandro’s shirt.
At a certain point he left his job and went home with a pretext; having reached the landing he invited Maria to come inside, but she didn’t move, so he took her by the arm and with a certain amount of force dragged her into the kitchen which was the first room you entered. The story is by Alessandro Serenelli himself, given to the Ecclesiastical Tribunal; Maria Goretti understood his intentions and began to tell him: “No, no, God doesn’t want it, if you do this you go to hellOnce again rejected, the young man flew into a rage and took an awl that he had with him and began to hit her; Maria scolded him and struggled and he, now blind in his fury, began to hit her violently on the belly and she still said: “What are you doing Alessandro? You’re going to hell like this…”, when he saw the blood stains on her clothes, he left her, but realized he had mortally wounded her. The girl’s cries, barely heard by the others, caused her mother to rush in and find her in a pool of blood. She was transported to the hospital in Orsenico di Nettuno, where following the copious loss of blood and the peritonitis caused by the 14 wounds from the awl, the doctors were unable to save her. Still alive and conscious, she forgave her murderer, telling her distraught mother who assisted her: “For the love of Jesus I forgive him; I want him to come with me to Heaven”; she was enrolled on her deathbed among the Daughters of Mary, received the last Sacraments and died the next day, 6 July 1902.
Alexander’s repentance and request for forgiveness
Alessandro arrested and sentenced to prison, already in 1910 he had repented and had dreamed of “Marietta”, as she was called, in Paradise picking flowers and giving them to him with her unmistakable smile. When he was released from prison in 1928, he went to his mother Assunta to ask for forgiveness and as a sign of reconciliation they both received Communion on Christmas night of that year.
On 31 May 1935 the first process for his beatification opened in the Diocese of Albano, which took place on 27 April 1947 with Pius XII, the same pope canonized her on 24 June 1950in front of an immense crowd, after congratulating his mother, who, ill and sitting in a wheelchair, witnessed the ritual from a window of the Vatican.
Her body rests in the chapel dedicated to her, in the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie in Nettuno, guarded by the Passionist Fathers and the destination of countless pilgrimages from all over the Catholic world.
