Anna Maria Rubatto

Anna Maria Rubatto was born on 14 February 1844 in Carmagnola, in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. She grew up in a large family of modest means. The death of her father while she was still a child left the household under financial strain. After an elementary education she left Carmagnola for Turin, where for many years she worked as a domestic companion in a noble household. In that setting she combined her duties with a life of prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, and personal charity toward the sick and the poor. She became a Franciscan tertiary during these years in Turin.

In the early 1880s, while staying at Loano on the Ligurian coast, she came into contact with a group of young women who wished to live a consecrated life in the Franciscan spirit and to serve the poor. A well-attested episode in which she went to the aid of a construction worker injured by a falling stone strengthened local regard for her and helped persuade the women to place themselves under her direction. In 1885 she founded at Loano the Institute of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, later known as the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto. She took the religious name Maria Francesca of Jesus. The community, linked to the Capuchin Franciscans, devoted itself to teaching, nursing, and care of the abandoned. Diocesan authorities supported the foundation, and houses were soon opened in Liguria and Piedmont.

From 1892 she directed the expansion of the congregation to Latin America, traveling to Uruguay with a group of sisters in response to requests from clergy and to the needs of Italian emigrants. She established the institute in Montevideo and subsequently in other parts of Uruguay and in Argentina. The sisters conducted schools, visited the sick, and worked among the urban poor. Rubatto divided her later years between the Italian houses and the South American missions, crossing the Atlantic several times in order to govern the institute. She spent her final period in Montevideo and died there on 6 August 1904.

Her reputation for holiness spread in both Italy and Uruguay. Pope John Paul II beatified her in Saint Peter's Square on 10 October 1993. Pope Francis canonized her on 15 May 2022. The Catholic Church commemorates her on 6 August, the anniversary of her death. The congregation she founded continues its work in Europe and the Americas.