St. Gianna Beretta Molla: A Saint for Our Times
St. Gianna Beretta Molla is a saint for our times. But, not for the reasons many believe. St. Gianna’s story is often portrayed as follows: she gave up her life so her child could live, thereby setting a heroic example for us of what it means to be a mother, a good mother, a godly mother.
When I first “met” St. Gianna, I was frankly suspicious. As a sociologist, I immerse myself in studying how the examples we use and the stories we tell shape our ideals of what a person should be, what a saint looks like, who qualifies as a good mother. And, as a Catholic doula, one of the most dangerous narratives I see in the Catholic birth world is the idea that perinatal health is what matters most, set up against a backdrop of stories of godly mothers who die for their children.
As a Catholic sociologist doula, who has now learned much more about St. Gianna, I am disheartened by how inaccurate retellings of St. Gianna’s story, and others, can pave the way for us to ignore maternal health. In other words, I worry that emphasizing the sanctifying value of a mother’s death provides an easy excuse to avoid reckoning with the ways in which we undervalue mothers’ lives.
In reality, St. Gianna’s story shows us someone who died to herself every day, someone who practiced that kind of self-giving love and then, when faced with a possibility of heroism, was willing to give the ultimate sacrifice, if needed. However, St. Gianna did not die so that her child might live; and that is crucial for us to understand and remember. Without it, we turn her story into propaganda for maternal death as the most godly and responsible choice; with correct context, we see the ways in which small, everyday choices prepare us for big ones.
St. Gianna Beretta Molla was a physician who lived from 1922 to 1962 in Italy. In her, we see the image of a normal person—a saint who loved to ski and mountain climb, a saint who knitted, who experienced perinatal depression, who reminded her husband to give their son his suppositories, and who wrote about never having time to go to daily Mass and about watching boring reruns on TV.[1]
St. Gianna’s first three pregnancies were very difficult. She experienced hyperemesis gravidarum (morning sickness to dangerous levels), long pregnancies (two that lasted 41 weeks and 3 days and one that lasted 43 weeks and 4 days), long labors (around 36 hours), and at least one forceps delivery. After the birth of her three children, she then experienced two miscarriages. At the beginning of her fifth, and most famous, pregnancy, she was 39 years old.
Two months into the pregnancy, Gianna was diagnosed with a uterine fibroma (a tumor which is usually benign, meaning non-cancerous, but can contribute to problems during pregnancy). Two of the typical treatments would result in her unborn baby’s death—a surgery removing the contents of her uterus, including both the fibroma and her baby (which would have been illicit under Catholic teaching), and a surgery removing her entire uterus including its contents (which would have been licit under Catholic teaching).
