RСС to canonize 28-year-old woman who refused three abortions

Chiara Corbella. Photo: vaticannews.va

On June 21, 2024, at noon, the Basilica of St. John Lateran will host a solemn ceremony marking the completion of the diocesan stage of the beatification process of Chiara Corbella – a woman who refused three abortions.

Chiara Corbella, a laywoman and deeply believing Catholic from childhood, married at the age of 24. Her first pregnancy revealed a serious fetal malformation. Despite this, Chiara and her husband Enrico decided not to terminate the pregnancy.

Their daughter, Maria Grazia Letizia, was born at term and died a few minutes after birth. Her parents managed to baptize her.

The second pregnancy was again accompanied by serious developmental problems in the unborn child. Once again, the young couple decided to preserve the pregnancy. This time, their son, Davide Giovanni, also died shortly after birth. He too was baptized.

During her third pregnancy, an ultrasound showed that the child was completely healthy. However, during the pregnancy Chiara developed an ulcer on her tongue, which was later diagnosed as carcinoma.

She refused any treatment that could have saved her life during pregnancy while endangering the life of her son. She suffered far more from the fact that doctors wanted to save her first and saw her son only as a fetus than from the disease itself.

Treatment began only after Francesco was born on May 30, 2011, but by then the cancer had already progressed.

In late March 2012, Chiara learned that the disease had metastasized to one breast and her liver, in addition to her lungs and eye. Her condition was declared incurable.

Later, Chiara found it difficult to speak and see, making her final days especially painful. Yet everyone around her testified that she endured them peacefully and was happy and grateful for every moment.

The day before her death, Enrico asked her, “Chiara, is the Lord’s yoke really easy?” The dying woman answered, “Yes.”

Her body rests in Rome’s Verano Cemetery next to her two children. Her tombstone bears the words she once said: “The most important thing in life is not to do something, but to be born and surrender oneself to love.”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the Roman Catholic Church had beatified the young “cyber-apostle.”

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