Remains of St. Maria Goretti, the youngest Catholic saint, arrive in Chicago.
October 12, 2015, 12:10 PM
Grace Wong and Manya Brachear Pashman
The remains of St. Maria Goretti, the youngest saint canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, arrived in Chicago at dawn Monday, with law enforcement officers as pallbearers for the young saint's glass casket.
"Just to see that moment of her convoy pulling up and to see people's reactions to that, really ecstatic. I think words like 'awe,' 'amazement' and 'beauty' best describe what people were experiencing at that moment," said the Rev. Joshua Caswell, a member of the Canons Regular, the religious order that runs St. John Cantius, 825 N. Carpenter St. "I saw tears in people's eyes. It's a very gratifying moment."
St. Maria Goretti, an 11-year-old Italian girl stabbed to death while resisting a sexual assault more than a century ago, will be on display for 24 hours at St. John Cantius Catholic Church in the Goose Island neighborhood before moving Tuesday to St. John Vianney in Northlake. She'll be on display Wednesday at St. Francis of Assisi in Orland Park and on Thursday at St. Mary Immaculate in Plainfield. Revered as a model of mercy, St. Maria Goretti is believed to have forgiven her killer and appeared to him later as an apparition, inspiring his conversion.
"Maria Goretti's story reads like a Chicago headline," Caswell said. "What a summer of violence we've had. We want to experience the forgiveness and healing not only in theory but truly present among us. That's why we have her here is to experience that mercy."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-saint-maria-goretti-arrives-met-20151012-story.html
Her story is incomplete without mention of Alessandro Serenetti.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Serenelli
The Year of Mercy indeed.
