She gave her life for her unborn child

Twentieth-century St. Gianna Beretta Molla chose the life of her unborn child over her own, which may be precisely why devotion to her spread during a time when the latter is often encouraged.

The decision was not isolated or random for Gianna but rather a journey that began long beforehand.

Born October 4, 1922, in the north Italian town of Magenta, Gianna was the tenth of thirteen children to Alberto Beretta and Maria de Micheli, members of the Third Order of Saint Francis.

Nestled in the latter half of a large family, Gianna was given an example from her parents of openness to the culture of life. Furthermore, she was educated in Catholic schools and received the sacraments growing up.

Active in her parish, she made the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius in 1938 as a fifteen-year-old but experienced a delay in her studies due to illness.
Eventually, Gianna was able to pursue academics in 1942, and she went on to complete degrees in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949.

Gianna loved skiing, mountaineering, and helping the elderly and needy. One of her dreams was to join her brother Giuseppe, a missionary priest in Brazil, and offer gynecology services to the poor —however, her health deterred this desire.

Staying in Italy, Gianna opened a medical practice in 1950 and began specializing in pediatrics, continuing her education at the University of Milan. While practicing medicine, she met Pietro Molla, an engineer, who would become her husband on September 24, 1955.

She embraced her roles as a wife, a mother, and a pediatrician. 

The happy couple went on to have four children: Pierluigi (b. 1956); Mariolina (1957-1964); Laura (b. 1959); and Gianna (b. 1962). 
She also suffered two separate miscarriages.

During the second month of her last pregnancy, Gianna experienced a mysterious pain in her body, diagnosed as a fibroma on her uterus. Doctors gave her three options: an abortion to preserve her life, possibly allowing her to conceive at a later date; a complete hysterectomy that would remove the baby and her uterus but save her life; or removal of the fibroma alone, which would save the baby but could lead to her health complications. Gianna chose to remove the fibroma only.

She let her family know that if necessary to choose the child’s life, believing the unborn child’s life was worth saving over her own.

In this selfless action, she then prepared for childbirth and the prospect of her death. On April 21, 1962, she gave birth to her youngest daughter named, Gianna Emanuela.

Despite treatment, an infection did incur in her body, and one week later, Gianna breathed her final breath on April 28, 1962.

The cause for her canonization began in 1972, and due to the miracle of Lucia Cirilo, healed of a fistula after the birth of her stillborn child in 1977. Gianna was beautified in 1994 with the miracle of Elizabeth Comparini, who was able to give birth to a healthy baby after losing all her amniotic fluid in the early stages of pregnancy. The canonization of Gianna took place by St. John Paul II in 2004.

Gianna’s husband Pietro wrote her biography and was the first husband to be present at his wife’s canonization. Their living children were also in attendance.

St. Pope Paul VI said Gianna was “a young mother from the Diocese of Milan, who, to give life to her daughter, sacrificed her own, with conscious immolation,” drawing a connection between Gianna to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and in the Holy Eucharist.

Gianna once said, “Love and sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot love without suffering, and we cannot suffer without love.” 

In the brave and counter-cultural act of choosing her child’s life during a difficult pregnancy and redemptive suffering, Gianna gave witness to Christian marriage, family and life. She led an exemplary life, living out the words she spoke and staying faithful to Church teachings, defending an unborn’s fundamental right to life.

Her youngest daughter went on to become a doctor. At the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, she read part of a love letter from her mother to her father that they were being called to serve God in a “saintly way.”