CHIAVENNA - Sister Maria Laura Mainetti, the nun stabbed to death by three teenage girls during a Satanic ritual, has been beatified by Pope Francis, according to Holy See sources.

  She was beatified at the church of St Lawrence in Chiavenna on June 6, 21 years to the day since she was brutally murdered in the same Lombardy town.

  On June 19, 2020, Pope Francis approved the process to begin her beatification by declaring her a martyr - having been killed “in hatred of the faith” - allowing her to be beatified without having performed a miracle.

  On June 6, 2020, a girl rang the convent in Chiavenna, where Mainetti was Mother Superior, claiming to have been raped and needed an abortion. Mainetti went to meet the girl in a public square at around 10 p.m. when she was ambushed by the girl and her two friends. They threw stones at her and took turns stabbing her, all the while Mainetti was praying and asking for forgiveness for the girls.

  The three girls, Veronica Pietrobelli, Ambra Gianasso, and Milena De Giambattista, who were at the time aged 16 and 17, later claimed to have killed her in the name of Satan. Gianasso was sentenced to 12 years in prison and the other two only years.

  At Mainetti’s beatification, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, who presided over the ceremony, said, “‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ Among these guests today the Church recognises the blessed martyr Maria Laura Mainetti. We all know the crucial hour of her life: while she was dying, she was forgiving. By forgiving, one is forgiven. At the end of her life, Sister Maria Laura did so.”

  Speaking after his Angelus address from the Apostolic Palace on the same day, Pope Francis said of Mainetti: "She, who loved young people more than anything, and who loved and forgave those same girls who were prisoners of evil, leaves us her life programme: to do every little thing with faith, love, and enthusiasm. May the Lord give us all faith, love, and enthusiasm.”

  A relic of Mainetti was revealed at the beatification ceremony for veneration.

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