The largest crowd that ever assembled for a canonization (250,000) symbolised the reaction of millions touched by the simple story of Maria Goretti.

She was the daughter of a poor Italian tenant farmer, had no chance to go to school and never learned to read or write. Tragically at the young age of 12 a neighbour of hers who was 5 years older stabbed her. She was rushed to hospital but died twenty four hours after the attack. Her murderer was sentenced to thirty years in prison. For a long time he was unrepentant. One night he had a dream of Maria, gathering flowers and offering them to him. His life changed. When he was released after 27 years, his first act was to go and beg the forgiveness of Maria’s mother.


Devotion to the Maria Goretti grew, miracles were worked and in less than half a century she was canonised. At her beatification in 1947, her mother (then 82), two sisters and her brother appeared with Pope Pius XII on the balcony of St.Peter’s. Three years later, at her canonisation, a 66 year old Alessandro Serenelli (her murderer)knelt among the quarter-million people and cried tears of joy.