April 28 marks the feast day of the remarkable Italian 20th century saint, Gianna Beretta Molla, who was canonized by now Saint Pope John Paul II on May 16, 2004. The miracle recognized to canonize Gianna Molla involved a 35-year-old Brazilian mother, Elizabeth Comparini Arcolino, who sustained a tear in her placenta that drained her womb of all amniotic fluid. Because a normal term of pregnancy is 40 weeks, Arcolino was told by her doctors the baby’s chance of survival was “nil.” Arcolino said she prayed to Gianna Molla asking for her intercession, and was able to deliver a healthy baby girl, Gianna Maria, on May 31, 2000, despite the lack of amniotic fluid.
The case of the miracle was studied by the Consulta Medica of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and on April 10, 2003 it was determined that, despite the grave prognosis for the fetus and the mother as the result of the total loss of amniotic fluid at the 16th week of gestation, and despite medical treatment that failed to alleviate and was inadequate for such a grave situation, the positive outcome of the pregnancy, both healthy mother and healthy child, was unexplainable in medical terms. The decree super miraculo was promulgated by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the presence of now Saint Pope John Paul II on Dec. 20, 2003.
Gianna Beretta was born in Magenta, about 24 kilometres west of Milan, on Oct. 4, 1922, as the 10th of Alberto and Maria Beretta’s 13 children. The name Gianna derives from the Hebrew, and means “God is gracious.”
During high school and her undergraduate years in university, she applied her faith in apostolic service among the youth of Catholic Action and charitable work among the elderly and needy as a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
After earning degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949, she opened a medical clinic in Mesero, near Magenta, in 1950. She specialized in pediatrics at the University of Milan in 1952 and thereafter gave special attention to mothers, babies, the elderly and poor.
She first met Pietro Molla, an engineer, factory director and fellow member of Catholic Action, who was 10 years older than her and would become her future husband, just in passing, in September 1949. But it was a meeting more than five years later on Dec. 8, 1954 – the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and the 100th anniversary of the day on which Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception – which proved to be the decisive moment in the attraction that was developing. Both had been invited to the first mass of a mutual friend, Father Lino Garavaglia. They were married on Sept. 24, 1955, in the Basilica of St. Martin in Magenta. In November 1956, she gave birth to Pierluigi, followed by Maria Zita, known as Mariolina, in December 1957, and Laura in July 1959.
In September 1961 towards the end of the second month of her pregnancy with a fourth child, Gianna Emanuela, she developed a fibroma in her uterus.
She rejected the possibility of having an abortion to save her own life, instead opting for risky surgery, before which she told Pietro, “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child – I insist on it.” Gianna Emanuela was born on April 21, 1962. Her mother, Gianna Beretta Molla, died a week later on April 28, now her feast day, as the result of complications from the pregnancy. She was 39. Gianna Emanuela, like her mother, became a doctor, and is a geriatrician living in Milan. There is also now a Saint Gianna Physician’s Guild, founded by Catholic laymen who saw a need for physicians and other healthcare workers to bring their faith into their lives and medical practices in a more pronounced way. The mission of Saint Gianna Physician’s Guild, based in San Diego, California, is to unite and encourage Catholic physicians, and those in the healthcare profession, to promote and defend Catholic principles in a public way by word and example, and to inspire sanctification in their lives.
“Conscious immolation” was the phrase used by now Blessed Pope Paul VI to define the self-sacrificing act of Gianna Beretta Molla, remembering her at the Sunday Angelus of Sept. 23, 1973 as, “A young mother from the Diocese of Milan, who, to give life to her daughter, sacrificed her own, with conscious immolation.”
Pietro Molla, then 91, was present at the canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in front of over 100,000 people for Gianna Beretta Molla on May 16, 2004, marking the first time in the 2000-year history of the Catholic Church that a husband had witnessed his wife’s canonization. The entire Arcolino family was also present for the canonization.
Along with Saint Pope John Paul II , Saint Gianna Beretta Molla has been named patron saint of the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in September, which Pope Francis is scheduled to attend during his first papal visit to the United States.
In 1979, Saint Pope John Paul II was the first pope to visit Philadelphia, where he said mass on Logan Circle for nearly one million people filling the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. In 1994, he celebrated the first World Meeting of Families in Rome, which aimed to strengthen the bonds of family across the globe. Upon his canonization a year ago on April 27, 2014, he was declared “the pope of the family.” Saint Gianna Beretta Molla is the patron saint for mothers, physicians and unborn children.
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