Marie de la Paix Giuliani

Marie de la Paix Giuliani was born Maria Giuliani on 12 December 1875 in L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. Little is securely recorded of her family circumstances beyond her Italian origin and her later religious vocation. In her youth she entered the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, a congregation founded in 1877 by Hélène de Chappotin (Mother Mary of the Passion) for missionary service among the poor and in territories where the Catholic Church was still being planted. She received the religious name Marie de la Paix (in Italian, Maria della Pace) and was formed in the Franciscan spirit of minority, joy, and availability for mission.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century she was assigned to the Catholic mission in Shanxi in northern China. The vicariate apostolic of Northern Shanxi, centered on Taiyuan, was entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor. Bishop Gregorio Grassi served as vicar apostolic, with Bishop Francesco Fogolla as coadjutor. The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary had recently opened a community there to assist in the care of orphans, the sick, and women, and to support the catechetical and charitable work of the mission. Marie de la Paix was one of seven sisters of her congregation stationed at Taiyuan, under the leadership of Sister Marie Hermine of Jesus. The small international community—French, Italian, Belgian, and Dutch—lived a simple missionary life among the local Christians.

In 1900 the Boxer movement, combining anti-foreign feeling with hostility to Christianity, swept northern China. In Shanxi the governor Yuxian pursued a particularly severe policy against missionaries and converts. On 9 July 1900 the European missionaries and a number of Chinese Catholics were seized and put to death at Taiyuan. Marie de la Paix Giuliani was killed that day together with her six companions of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, the two Franciscan bishops, several friars, seminarians, and Chinese tertiaries and lay faithful. She was twenty-four years of age. The killings became known as the Taiyuan massacre and formed one of the principal episodes of the Boxer-era martyrdoms in China.

The Catholic Church recognized this witness in successive stages. Pope Pius XII beatified Gregory Grassi and his companions, including the seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, on 24 November 1946. On 1 October 2000 Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 120 Martyrs of China, among whom were Marie de la Paix Giuliani and those who died with her at Taiyuan. Their collective liturgical memorial is kept on 9 July. She is venerated as a saint of the Catholic Church, a missionary religious, and a martyr of the faith in China.