Lay Saints

Chiara Corbella Petrillo: The First Step Towards Beatification

The Diocese of Rome has launched the process with the Edict: “Her oblation is a beacon of hope”
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“We think of the saints as heroes, as people capable of doing special things. No, it’s not like that; the experience of God is never taken for granted.” These are the words of Father Vito D’Amato, Franciscan friar and spiritual father of the Servant of God Chiara Corbella Petrillo, who now, six years after her death, has entered the first phase towards beatification.

The young woman died in 2012, at just 28. A laywoman and mother who, after marrying Enrico Petrillo in 2008, soon found herself going through unexpected and difficult situations, including the death of two children shortly after their birth. During the third pregnancy, it was discovered that Chiara had a tumor. Since treatment would have had fatal consequences on the unborn child, Chiara chose to complete the pregnancy.

“If I close my eyes, I imagine Chiara happy, serene—adds Father Vito in the interview published by the newspaper Avvenire —Maybe she’s watching us while we’re here to tell her story and smiling as she always did.”

“Her oblation remains as a beacon of hope, a witness of faith in God, the Author of life, an example of the greatest love and of death,” says the edict with which the Diocese of Rome has opened the path towards Chiara’s beatification and that will remain posted at the gates of the Vicariate for two months, while we are collecting the documentation necessary to start the process.

29 July 2018