20th century
Feast: April 28
A pediatrician, skier, and mother of three who was diagnosed with a uterine tumor during her fourth pregnancy — she chose to protect the baby and died a week after delivery.
Gianna Beretta was not the kind of saint who retreated from the world. She was a pediatrician with her own practice in Magenta, near Milan. She skied, played piano, attended the opera, wore fashionable clothes, and loved her work. She married Pietro Molla, an engineer, in 1955, and they had three children in quick succession. During her fourth pregnancy, doctors discovered a fibroma on her uterus. They gave her three options: a hysterectomy (which would kill the baby), removal of the tumor with the uterus (also fatal for the baby), or removal of the tumor alone (risky for both mother and child). Gianna chose the third option. 'If you must decide between me and the child,' she told her husband, 'do not hesitate: choose the child.' The tumor was removed. The pregnancy continued. On April 21, 1962, Gianna Emanuela was born healthy. Gianna developed septic peritonitis. She died a week later, at thirty-nine, holding her husband's hand. She was not making a theological statement. She was a doctor who understood the odds and made a decision. Her daughter Gianna Emanuela, who survived, was present at her canonization in 2004. Pietro was there too — one of the only husbands to attend his wife's canonization.