St. Maria Goretti
Martyr for Purity Patron Saint of Youth, Young Women, Purity and Victims of Rape Maria Goretti was born on October 16, 1890, in Coranaldo in the province of Ancona in Italy, the third of seven children of Assunta and Luigi Goretti. When Maria was six, her father, realizing he could not support his growing family on the barren countryside, took them south to a village near Anzio, believing that in the rich, warm farmlands of the Mediterranean he would find a more prosperous living and a make a better life for his family. Luigi was a hard worker, but suffering from malaria, typhus, meningitis and pneumonia, he died in 1900, leaving his family penniless. Maria, now a child of ten, was doing the work of a grown woman . Maria impressed everyone with her radiant purity. She was naturally pious, kind, and helpful. She was also outstandingly beautiful . In 1902, at age twelve, Maria was attacked by the 19-year-old farm hand Alessandro Serenelli. He tried to rape her but she resisted and foug...