ROME — Italian Sister Maria Laura Mainetti, who was murdered in 2000 by three teenage girls during a Satanic ritual, was beatified by the Catholic Church Sunday after being recognized as a martyr.
“Today in Chiavenna, in the Diocese of Como, Sr. Maria Laura Mainetti is being beatified,” Pope Francis declared after his weekly Angelus message in Saint Peter’s Square.
“She was killed 21 years ago by three young women influenced by a satanic sect. Cruelty,” the pontiff continued, in reference to the nun’s slaying on June 6 of that year, stabbed 19 times by the girls as an offering to Satan.
“She who loved young people more than anything, and who loved and forgave those same girls imprisoned by evil, leaves us her program for life: do every little thing with faith, love, and enthusiasm,” the pope said.
“May the Lord give all of us faith, love, and enthusiasm. A round of applause for the new Blessed!” he concluded.
On the evening of June 6, 2000, 17-year-old Ambra Gianasso telephoned Sister Mainetti, telling her the story that she had been raped and left pregnant and intended to abort her child, as a ruse to lure the nun to a deserted place.
At the Marmitte dei Giganti Park, together with her friends Veronica Pietrobelli and Milena De Giambattista, aged 17 and 16 years respectively, Gianasso assaulted the nun, first striking her in the head with a ceramic block. The three girls then took turns stabbing Mainetta six times each with the same knife, intending the 666 as an honor to the devil, though one of the girls accidentally stabbed her a seventh time.
The girls said they had also selected the date — 6/6 — for the same reason.
Initially, the girls had chosen as their victim the local parish priest, Monsignor Ambrogio Balatti, but realized that his robust build would have made the murder risky, so they opted for the sister, who was slight of build.
In their testimony, the girls said that while she was being stabbed, the nun was kneeling on the ground asking God to forgive them for this sin.
The girls also said they had made a blood pact between them to carry out the sacrificial murder, which they had perpetrated under Satan’s orders.
Father Gabriele Amorth, the former president of the World Association of Exorcists, said that in his opinion the girls were not possessed by the devil, but heavily influenced by him.
“I have never encountered similar forms of diabolic influence,” he said at the time.
Asked how he explained the rapid spread of Satanism in Italy, Father Amorth said that he saw boredom and loss of faith at the core.
“There is no longer a reason to live,” he said. “Young people receive everything from their parents, except faith. Even these girls who killed the nun said they did it out of boredom.”
“When faith disappears from the life of a people, one indulges in superstition and, today, above all in occultism,” he declared.
On June 19, 2020, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree recognizing Sister Mainetti’s martyrdom, since she had been killed “In odium fidei” (out of hatred of the faith).