St. Maria Goretti

St. Maria Goretti was born on 16 October 1890 at Corinaldo, Italy, into a poor farming family, and died a martyr on 6 July 1902 at Nettuno, not quite twelve years old. After her father's early death the family shared a house with another family, and a young man named Alessandro Serenelli conceived a lust for the devout, hardworking girl. One afternoon he cornered her and tried to force himself upon her; she resisted with all her strength, crying out that it was a sin and that God did not will it, and rather than submit she was stabbed many times.

As she lay dying in the hospital, she forgave her attacker and expressed the desire that he might one day be with her in heaven. Alessandro, imprisoned and at first unrepentant, was moved to conversion after Maria appeared to him in a dream; he later begged her mother's forgiveness and even attended the ceremonies for her cause. Canonized in 1950 by Pope Pius XII — with her mother present — she is honored as a martyr for chastity and a patron of youth, of purity, and of victims of assault.