Feast day: 28 April
Saint Gianna Beretta Molla
An Italian paediatrician, wife and mother of four who, facing a tumour during pregnancy, refused treatment that would have ended her child's life and died a week after giving birth.
- Born
- 4 October 1922, Magenta, Milan (Italy)
- Died
- 28 April 1962, Monza (Italy)
- Canonization
- Beatified 24 April 1994 by John Paul II; canonized 16 May 2004 by Pope John Paul II, with her husband present.
- Country
- Italy
Biography
Doctor and lay apostle
Tenth of thirteen children in a devout Milanese family, Gianna qualified in medicine and surgery in 1949 and specialised in paediatrics, opening a practice at Mesero. Active in Catholic Action and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, she considered missionary work in Brazil with her priest brother but was not strong enough.
Marriage
In 1955 she married the engineer Pietro Molla. Their letters show a joyful, deliberately Christian marriage. Three children were born between 1956 and 1959; she continued to practise medicine, ski and love music.
The last pregnancy
In her fourth pregnancy a fibroma was found in her uterus. Of the options presented, she chose the one that risked her life but preserved her child's, telling the surgeons to save the baby if a choice had to be made. Gianna Emanuela was born on 21 April 1962; her mother died of septic peritonitis a week later, aged thirty-nine.
Timeline
- 1922 — Born at Magenta near Milan
- 1949 — Graduates in medicine and surgery
- 1955 — Marries Pietro Molla
- 1961 — Diagnosed with a uterine fibroma while pregnant
- 1962 — Gives birth 21 April; dies 28 April
- 2004 — Canonized by John Paul II
Dates marked ~ are traditional or debated among historians.
Symbols
Physician's coat — Her profession lived as a vocation.
Infant in arms — The daughter for whom she gave her life.
Virtues & spiritual lessons
Ordinary holiness in profession and family, love of life, and self-gift to the point of death for another.
Importance in the Church
The first married laywoman doctor canonized in modern times, invoked worldwide for mothers in difficult pregnancies and in defence of unborn life.
Quotes
“If you must choose between me and the child, no hesitation: choose the child. I insist on it. Save the baby.”
To her doctors before the operation, April 1962
“Love and sacrifice are as closely linked as the sun and the light.”
Letters of Gianna Beretta Molla
Prayers
Prayer to Saint Gianna
Saint Gianna, mother and physician, you loved life as God's gift and gave your own so that your child might live. Protect mothers and their unborn children, guide doctors in respecting every human life, and teach families the joy of sacrificial love. Amen.
Prayer used at the shrine of Mesero.
Places
Mesero, Lombardy — Where she practised medicine and where she is buried.
Magenta, Milan — Her birthplace.
Related saints
Entries are drawn from the Roman Martyrology, the General Roman Calendar, canonization records of the Holy See, and the saints' own writings. Where a date, quotation or attribution is uncertain, it is marked as such. (63 saints)