Maria Laura Mainetti
Italian religious, martyr and blessed
Feast: 6 June (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 19 June 2020 — Martyrdom recognised (decree list, 2020)
Who they were
Teresina Elsa Mainetti was born at Colico on 20 August 1939; her mother died and she was raised by her stepmother. She joined the Daughters of the Cross, Sisters of St Andrew, entering the postulancy in Rome in 1957.
On 6 June 2000 at Chiavenna, three girls who planned to sacrifice a consecrated person to the devil lured her to a lonely street; she went in order to help one of them. They killed her with stones and many knife wounds while she forgave them and prayed for them.
The miracles
As a martyr she was beatified without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A sister who went to help a troubled girl and died forgiving her killers.
The cause
Maria Laura Mainetti has been beatified; the cause continues. Favours received, and offers of help, go to the postulation, the office that carries the cause forward: Blessed Sister Maria Laura Mainetti: the official site.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Maria Laura Mainetti
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q3290983 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Maria Laura Mainetti (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.