Anna Rosa Gattorno

Rosa Maria Benedetta Gattorno was born on 14 October 1831 in Genoa, then in the Kingdom of Sardinia, to Francesco Gattorno and Adelaide Campanella, members of a prosperous and practising Catholic family. She received the education customary for a young woman of the Genoese upper bourgeoisie, including a strong religious formation. On 5 November 1852 she married Girolamo Custo. The couple had three children and for a time lived in Marseille, where Custo pursued commercial affairs, before returning to Genoa. Family life was soon marked by misfortune: one child died, another was left seriously impaired by illness, and in 1858 Girolamo Custo himself died, leaving Rosa a widow still in her twenties with surviving children to raise and support.

Widowhood became the turning point of her spiritual life. She deepened her prayer, enrolled as a Franciscan tertiary, and gave herself to charitable work among the poor and the sick of Genoa. Spiritual directors recorded a demanding interior life and mystical graces, which she sought to keep hidden. Although she remained responsible for her children, she became convinced that God was calling her to found a new religious family dedicated to works of mercy. After journeys to Rome for counsel, she received encouragement from Pope Pius IX, who urged her not to set the project aside on account of her duties as a mother.

On 8 December 1866, with the support of Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini of Piacenza, she established the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Anne, taking the religious name Anna Rosa. The first community formed at Piacenza. The institute was conceived as a simple, family-style religious life combining contemplation with active service: education of children, care of the sick and abandoned, assistance to the elderly, and other works of charity, including among the poorest. Gattorno governed the congregation as foundress and first superior while continuing to provide for her own children. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the Daughters of St. Anne spread through Italy and began foundations in the Americas and elsewhere, obtaining ecclesiastical approval for their rule and constitutions.

Anna Rosa Gattorno died in Rome on 6 May 1900. Her reputation for holiness and the continued growth of her congregation led to the opening of a cause for canonization. Pope John Paul II beatified her on 9 April 2000 in Saint Peter's Square. She is commemorated liturgically on 6 May, the anniversary of her death. She has not been canonized. The Daughters of St. Anne remain active in many countries, continuing the works of education and charity associated with their foundress.