Chiara Corbella Petrillo

Chiara Corbella Petrillo was born in Rome, Italy, on 9 January 1984 and raised in a Catholic family. As a young woman she took part in Church youth groups and in the Catholic charismatic renewal. In 2002 she met Enrico Petrillo in connection with a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. After a long courtship they married on 21 September 2008 in the church of San Pietro in Assisi and made their home in Rome, seeking to live a simple, Franciscan-inspired spirituality of trust in Divine Providence.

During their first pregnancy, examinations showed that their daughter, Maria Grazia Letizia, had anencephaly, a malformation incompatible with prolonged life. Chiara and Enrico declined abortion and carried the pregnancy to term. Maria Grazia Letizia was born on 24 June 2009, was baptized, and died within about half an hour. A year later, on the same calendar date, their second child, Davide Giovanni, was born with equally grave anomalies, including absence of the legs and kidneys, and lived only a short time. The couple later spoke of these losses as a school of love and of abandonment to God rather than as a reason to refuse further children.

In late 2010 Chiara conceived a third child, Francesco. During this pregnancy a lesion on her tongue was diagnosed as carcinoma. She postponed oncological treatment until after the birth so as not to endanger the unborn child. Francesco was born healthy on 30 May 2011. Surgery and subsequent therapy did not halt the disease, which metastasized. Throughout her illness she continued to care for her infant son and spoke of joy and of the goodness of God, becoming widely known among Italian Catholics for her serenity in the face of death.

Chiara Corbella Petrillo died in Rome on 13 June 2012 at the age of twenty-eight. Her funeral attracted considerable public attention, and accounts of her life, her letters, and the testimony of her husband circulated in books and documentaries. The Diocese of Rome opened her cause of beatification on 2 September 2018, conferring the title Servant of God. She has not been beatified or canonized. Her story is frequently cited in Catholic discussion of the dignity of unborn children with disabilities, of marital fidelity, and of Christian hope amid terminal illness.