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St. Maria Goretti, dated 1902, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The story of Maria Teresa Goretti, the saint whose feast we celebrate each July 6th, has been made known to many since her untimely death on that date in 1902. The 11-year old peasant girl died as a result of injuries inflicted by Alessandro Serenelli, a young man determined to force her to submit to his inappropriate advances. When she resisted, crying, “No! No! It is a sin!” he stabbed her repeatedly, a total of fourteen times. Maria underwent unsuccessful surgery without benefit of anesthesia and died the following day, after receiving her greatly-desired First Communion.

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Fresco in the Church of Saint Nicholas in Valencia, of Saint Maria Goretti (1890 - 1902)

If we could have traveled to a poor sharecropping farm in central Italy early in the 20th century, we would have seen a humble building – formerly a cheese factory – sheltering two families of tenant farmers.

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