Church Canonizes Wife, Mother, and Physician

by Michael J. Miller, M.Phil., M.A. Theol.

Even before her canonization on May 16, 2004, Gianna Beretta Molla had become a patron saint for pro-lifers. Very much a woman of the 20th century, this devout Catholic laywoman (1922-1962) combined a successful career as a physician with the duties of being a loving wife and mother, and she laid down her own life during an extremely difficult pregnancy in order to bring her youngest child to term safely. Blessed Gianna was beatified on Good Shepherd Sunday in 1994, the Year of the Family, with her grown children attending the ceremony.

Gianna herself had been blessed with saintly parents and many, many brothers and sisters. She was a precocious child who learned her catechism so well that she was allowed to receive her First Holy Communion at the age of five. She brought the same earnest diligence to the practice of her faith and to her schoolwork and became an excellent student.

It is easier to understand why Gianna Beretta put off marriage for so long if we consider her situation as she was completing her teenage years. World War II was raging. Both of her parents died in 1942 of natural causes, just a few months apart. In that same year Gianna entered medical school, while her older brother Enrico, already a physician, entered the Capuchin Order so as to work in the missions. For years Gianna prayed and studied, hoping that she, as a laywoman, might follow her brother as a medical missionary.

Gianna did not just bury herself in her books. She loved skiing and the opera. She was also involved in Catholic Action, helping to organize retreats and lectures, and working with youth groups and at a parish summer camp. It was through her volunteer work that she occasionally met the engineer Pietro Molla who, though ten years older than the medical student was very impressed with the young lady.

The idea of marriage dawned on Gianna only gradually. She prayed a lot during this time and asked her friends and siblings to make novenas so that she might discern her vocation in life. Her father confessor wisely refrained from giving her any direct advice, but he did remark: "If all good Catholic girls went into the convent, then where would we get our Christian mothers?"

Gianna was already a physician with a busy practice when she became better acquainted with Pietro Molla. He proposed to her in 1955 and they were engaged on Easter Sunday. Their engagement lasted half a year, during which Pietro had to travel several times on business. The love letters that they wrote (which have been published in English by Pauline Books and Media) evoke the sun-drenched landscapes and towering Alpine heights of northern Italy.

As the early autumn wedding date approached, the bride, who was nearly 33 years old, and the groom prepared themselves to receive the sacrament of Matrimony by a triduum of prayer, in which each of them made a good Confession and received Holy Communion. On September 24,1955, a beautiful, cloudless day, Gianna's brother Ferdinando walked her down the aisle to where Pietro was waiting, and another brother, Giuseppe, a diocesan priest, witnessed the exchange of the couple's vows.

The newlyweds made their new home in a lovely villa near the factory where Pietro worked as a manager. Gianna continued to practice medicine but very much wanted a family. "If we are going to have children, we had better hurry," they said. And about two months after their first anniversary their son Pierluigi was born. Little Mariolina and Lauretta soon followed.

None of Gianna's pregnancies was easy. She also had two miscarriages. Yet she loved her children more than herself and took her vocation as a mother quite seriously. She and Pietro kept their marriage open to the gift of more children, if God would send them any.

Pietro Molla describes the dilemma that his wife faced during her sixth pregnancy. "She wasn't some mystical type... Gianna was a woman who could take pleasure in the small and great joys God grants us even in this world. Nevertheless, she did not hesitate rate when she learned of the large tumor that threatened the normal development of her pregnancy. Her first reaction was to ask the doctors to save the child in her womb... Gianna chose the [surgical] option [that was] the riskiest for herself... Gianna trusted in God."

Gianna Molla was able to hold her youngest baby, Gianna Emanuela, in her arms, but she herself died a painful death shortly afterward.

In his homily at the beatification ceremony, Pope John Paul II said of Blessed Gianna: "As a surgeon, she was well aware of what to expect, but did not falter when faced with sacrifice, confirming in this way the heroic nature of her virtues."

No one should imagine that it was an easy decision for Gianna to save her baby, possibly at the expense of her own life. She loved her husband and her three other children dearly. Yet instead of consenting to treatment that would put her baby at risk, she placed her trust in God, praying that He would keep both mother and baby alive. Yet she prudently made arrangements for her unmarried sister Zita, who was a pharmacist, to take care of the household in case she did not survive.

After the baby was delivered and it was clear that Gianna was dying of a serious infection, she received the Anointing of the Sick and the other sacraments from her priest-brother, Giuseppe. She asked Pietro to let her die, not in the hospital, but rather back home. She was brought by ambulance to the couple's house and died there on the morning of April 28, 1962. Her funeral two days later was attended by a huge throng of people from the surrounding area.

The biography of St. Gianna Molla by Giuliana Pelucchi contains, in an appendix, moving tributes written by her children, who are now adults. The youngest, Gianna Emanuela, who became a physician like her mother, describes her mother's heroic witness: "Every moment of her entire existence was a real testimony of Christian love and faith, which she lived with joy in her everyday life. She always trusted in divine Providence, and she crowned her exemplary life in the name of a love without measure."

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