Maria Goretti relics to visit 3 local churches

LOCALS KNOW St. Maria Goretti as the name of a South Philadelphia high school and a church in Hatfield.

But when one of the Catholic Church's curator of relics, the Rev. Carlos Martins, brings the saint's remains to the United States this month, he wants people also to remember her human story: How an 11-year-old growing up in Italy at the turn of the last century turned an awful event into an incredible one.

In July 1902, as the girl known then simply as Maria lay dying from 14 stab wounds inflicted by a would-be rapist, she told her caretakers that she forgave her assailant, whom she had known, adding, "I want him with me in heaven forever."

"To forgive one's attacker is heroic, to say the least," Martins said. "But she was also in agony, dying not from blood loss or stab wounds but an infection that was eating her alive. She was conscious during those final 24 hours and I'm sure there were many thoughts going through her, but no one could expect that words of forgiveness would be on her mind and in her heart."

This tour - only the second time the saint's relics have left Italy, and the first time they will be in the U.S. - visits three area churches in the four days before the arrival of Pope Francis. It comes on the heels of his announcement about expanded indulgences for sinners during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, set to begin Dec. 8.

St. Maria Goretti "especially embodies the mercy that the pope said every Catholic - and, indeed, the world - should focus on," Martins said.

St. Maria Goretti was canonized in 1950, with her mother in attendance at the service. She is the church's youngest saint and is sometimes known as the Patroness of Purity.

Her relics, normally housed in a basilica outside Rome that bears her name, will first be displayed at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, N.J., on Sept. 21. Some of the saint's descendants are expected to attend during veneration hours there. They live in New Jersey, where the saint's three brothers emigrated after her death.

After that, the relics visit three churches in and around Philly before leaving on a national tour:

* Sept. 22, St. Maria Goretti Church, 1601 Derstine Road, Hatfield. Public veneration: noon-11 p.m., Mass to honor St. Maria at 7 p.m.

* Sept. 23, National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia, 1166 S. Broad St. Public veneration follows noon Mass and continues to 8 p.m. Mass to honor St. Maria at 5:30 p.m.

* Sept. 24-25, St. John the Evangelist Church, 21 S. 13th St. Public veneration begins 10 a.m. Thursday and continues all night and through the following day, ending at 11 p.m. Friday. Masses celebrated in St. Maria's honor at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday.

Visitors will see a statue in the saint's likeness within a glass-sided casket. Encased in the statue are most of the saint's skeletal remains.

Minor fragments from a rib shattered in the attack are used in other church ministries, Martins said. A bone from the saint's right arm - the one she used to fend off her attacker - was given by her mother to the church where she was baptized.

Martins, who has worked with the relics of about 160 other saints, said that St. Maria's are those he has seen most often associated with miracles.

One woman credits the saint's intervention for her recovery from a staph infection in 2009. In 2003, a man who said he had been abused by priests found healing and grace through the saint. He has since formed a support network (The Maria Goretti Network) for other people who have been abused in any way.

Those who visit the relics as they tour will be encouraged to place a hand on the glass container. "Whenever relics are mentioned in Scripture there is a healing effected," said Martins, adding that "touch is the vehicle by which the healing comes about."

"Relics aren't magic," he noted. "There's not a power that will be passed along through the relic. It's a way of opening ourselves to God, who has, time and time again, shown he likes to act through the remains of his saints."