Blessed Maria Laura Mainetti, Daughter of the Cross and Martyr

Who was Blessed Maria Laura Mainetti?

Blessed Maria Laura Mainetti was an Italian religious sister, a Daughter of the Cross, who gave her life to young people and was killed by three of them. On the night of June 6, 2000, in Chiavenna, a small Alpine town north of Lake Como, three teenage girls lured her out with a false plea for help and murdered her as a sacrifice to Satan. She died praying for them. The Church recognized her death as martyrdom, and she was beatified in Chiavenna on June 6, 2021. Pope Francis said that day that she "loved young people more than anything, and ... loved and forgave those same girls imprisoned by evil."

The life of Blessed Maria Laura

A motherless child

She was born Teresina Elsa Mainetti on August 20, 1939, at Colico, on the shore of Lake Como, and baptized two days later in the parish of Villatico. She was the tenth child of Stefano Mainetti and Marcellina Gusmeroli. Her mother had been warned that the pregnancy was dangerous and carried it to term anyway; she died a few days after Teresina's birth. Her eldest sister, Romilda, only twelve, helped their father raise the children.

"Something beautiful for others"

She studied at the schools of the Daughters of the Cross in Parma. She told the story of her vocation years later. As a young girl, during confession, a priest asked what she wanted to do with her life. Without having thought about it, she answered, "Penso di fare qualcosa di bello per gli altri" ("I think I'll do something beautiful for others"). The priest replied, "Tu devi fare qualcosa di bello per gli altri" ("You must do something beautiful for others"). The words filled her with joy and gave her life its direction.

She began her postulancy in Rome in August 1957 and entered the novitiate in February 1958, taking the name Maria Laura. She made her first vows on August 15, 1959, and her perpetual vows on August 25, 1964, at La Puye in France, the mother house of the congregation founded by St. Andrew Hubert Fournet. From then on she signed herself "Suor Maria Laura Figlia della Croce."

Teacher and friend of the young

She taught primary school in Vasto, Rome, Parma and Chiavenna, and trained to work with children with learning and behavioral difficulties. In Chiavenna, where she lived from 1984, she directed a residence for girl students and became the town's sister for everyone: catechist, companion of young people, visitor of the sick and lonely, extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, quiet helper of parents whose children were caught in alcohol or drugs. She called young people "the poorest of the poor" in today's society, because they are so easily led.

Her motto, which Pope Francis repeated at her beatification, was: "L'importante è fare ogni piccola cosa con fede, amore ed entusiasmo" ("What matters is to do every little thing with faith, love and enthusiasm"). Not long before her death she told a friend, "Sono felicissima... il Paradiso io l'ho già vissuto in terra" ("I am very happy... I have already lived Paradise on earth").

Her martyrdom

On the evening of June 6, 2000, a girl telephoned her, saying she had been raped, was pregnant and needed help urgently. Sister Maria Laura, sixty years old, went out to meet her. Three girls of sixteen and seventeen led her to a lonely lane on the edge of town and killed her with knives. They later said they had planned it as a sacrifice to Satan. As she was struck, she prayed for them and forgave them. Her body was found the next morning.

The cross set up where she died bears the words of Jesus: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Her room in the former Istituto Immacolata is kept as she left it that evening.

Her beatification

The diocesan inquiry into her death opened in Como in 2005. On June 19, 2020, Pope Francis approved the decree recognizing that she was killed in odium fidei, out of hatred of the faith, so no miracle was required for her beatification. She was beatified in Chiavenna on June 6, 2021, twenty-one years to the day after her death. Favors attributed to her since then are reported graces; a miracle would be needed for her canonization. Read more on what a martyr is.

Symbols of Blessed Maria Laura in art

Images of Blessed Maria Laura follow her photographs: a smiling woman in the simple dress and short veil of the Daughters of the Cross. Look for:

• The cross: her congregation's name and her own signature, "Figlia della Croce."
• Ears of wheat: for the grain of wheat that dies and bears fruit, carved on her memorial.
• Young people around her: for the students and teenagers she lived for.

Feast day and where she is honored

We keep her feast on June 6. Her remains rest at a side altar in the Collegiate Church of San Lorenzo in Chiavenna, where pilgrims leave written prayers, and pilgrim groups walk to the memorial cross on Via Poiatengo. See our feast days page.

Praying with Blessed Maria Laura

We have not found an official English prayer to Blessed Maria Laura, so we do not print one. She prayed simply: "Gesù aiutami a riconoscerti in loro, a guidarli a Te" ("Jesus, help me to recognize you in them, to lead them to you"). Let us ask her intercession for teenagers who are lost or drawn into the occult, for parents afraid for their children, for teachers and youth workers, and for the grace to forgive those who have hurt us. Blessed Maria Laura Mainetti, pray for us.