St. Gianna Beretta Molla
Feast 04-28 · Canonized 2004
Patron of
About
Gianna Beretta was born in 1922 in Magenta, Italy, the tenth of thirteen children. She studied medicine at the University of Pavia and became a pediatrician, serving mothers and children in her practice in Mesero.
In 1955 she married Pietro Molla, and they had four children. During her fourth pregnancy, doctors discovered a fibroid tumor in her uterus. She refused treatments that would have saved her life at the cost of her unborn child, insisting that the child's life be saved.
Her daughter Gianna Emanuela was born healthy in April 1962, and Gianna died a week later at the age of thirty-nine. She was canonized in 2004 and is venerated as a patroness of mothers, of physicians, and of unborn children.
Suggested prayer
O God, who gave Gianna Beretta Molla the courage to refuse the treatment that would have cost her unborn child's life, grant through her intercession that mothers and all who defend the unborn may choose life with her courage. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
