Religious Studies - Saint Gianna Beretta Molla
Introduction
The canonization by the Catholic Church in 2004 of Gianna Beretta Molla as a patron saint of mothers, physicians, and preborn children is a remarkable story of human faith in her religious convictions as both an ethical physician and as a follower of the teachings of God through Jesus Christ his Son. Phenomenal events are common in the worlds of the Old and New Testament and the lives of the saints marked by mystical intervention.
In our era, the Eternal Father selects ordinary people from our midst to use as His instrument to spread the gospel. He calling reveals those who honor the covenant He made so that His "will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” The amazing sanctity of Gianna Beretta Molla, who chose to live a normal life as a professional pediatric doctor, wife, and mother reveals her as a God-loving person for all times and all walks of life. As a guardian of mothers, spouses, and professionals the modern-day Saint Gianna remains an icon whom practically everyone can identify. Discussion includes an introduction to the life of Gianna Molla along with her contribution to morality and health care. One argument presented discusses the virtues of Dr. Molla found exhibited in her everyday life including her work as a doctor, being a mother, and her duties of being a wife, leading her to selfless martyrdom. This argument finally includes her canonization to saint hood by Pope John Paul II. She shows us how we can attain holiness in maintaining a strong prayer life and in choosing the sacrifices exemplified by the teachings of Jesus in everyday duties in life, wherein we all can benefit from her example.
The following scholastic endeavor provides a brief biographical account of the life of St. Gianna. In line with her recognized life and work dedicated to lay sanctity (saintgianna.org, 2014) contributing to both morality and health care precepts endorsed and supported by the Catholic Church the academic investigation resulting in this document provides discourse on both this Saint’s contribution to morality and to health care practices as revealed in the dedication she exhibited in her life.
Biographical Background
The life of Gianna Beretta Molla begins as the tenth child of thirteen in Magenta, Italy. She is only one of nine who survive to adulthood. Young Gianna Beretta Molla at age three, moves with her family relocation to Bergamo, Italy in the Lombardy region of the nation where she grows into a young woman. From 1942 until graduation in 1949, she studies medicine in Milan. With her graduation from medical school at age 27, she opens her first office near her hometown of Magenta in Meserto, Italy specializing in pediatrics (Catholic online.com, 2014). During this, time the devout Catholic medical student in the Catholic Action of Milano organization (Catholic online.com, 2014). At graduation from medical school, upon receiving her diploma, the now Doctor Molla speaks this prayer, “May I always use my knowledge to be an instrument of healing and comfort for others (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012, p.30).”
Chronic illness kept the young Dr. Molla from joining her missionary priest brother in Brazil where she had anticipated offering gynecological medical expertise to the poor women.
Gianna hoped to join her brother, a missionary priest in Brazil, where she intended to offer her medical expertise in gynecology to poor women. However, chronic ill health made this impractical, and she continued working at her practice in Meserto (Catholic online.com, 2014).
Dr. Molla met an engineer ten years her senior in 1954 and a short courtship culminated in their engagement and following marriage in 1955. Three children followed beginning the next year with Pierluigi, the next ear, Mariolina, and finally in 1959 Laura. Finding she was again pregnant in 1961, Dr. Molla developed a fibroma benign tumor of the uterus resulting in three choices including complete hysterectomy, removing the fibroma only, or an abortion. As a devout Catholic, the abortion was out of the question with the Church forbidding such action. The hysterectomy would terminate her pregnancy, but the Church recognizes it a as a legitimate medical procedure as an option (Catholic online.com, 2014).
Dr. Molla, desiring to keep her child decided on the removal of the fibroma but continued suffering complications throughout the remainder of the pregnancy.
Nonetheless, the delivery of her fourth child by Caesarean section April 21, 1962 proved successful. Prior to the delivery Dr. Molla extolled her family that should a choice arise of saving her or the baby then she wanted her child’s life preserved. Complications followed the birth of her child resulting in Dr. Molla dying a week later due to septic peritonitis infection of the lining of her abdominal cavity (Catholic online.com, 2014).
The Catholic Church canonization of Saint Gianna emerges as the first of its kind. While the Church continued recognizing numerous mothers through beatification for virtues expressed through their heroism, these sainted women entered the religious life upon loss of their husbands. The case of Saint Gianna receiving the highest recognition of a layperson, by the Church directly links to the role she served in life as a wife and mother, and a professional doctor-working woman (Saintgianna.org, 2014). The details behind these characteristics of St. Gianna and the miracle need for canonizing her into sainthood tell of her contribution to both morality and to health care.
Contribution to Morality
Morality underpinned the behavior of the devoutly raised Catholic St. Gianna. During the years in Milan studying medicine from 1942 until graduation in 1949, the trials of the citizens remained particularly hazard during this time of WWII. Membership in the Catholic Action organization reveals the dedication St. Gianna exhibited in her willingness and example helping other members dedicated to following the teachings of Jesus Christ in everyday living with emphasis on prayer, service, and the necessary sacrifices needed to follow such a sacred path as an everyday human being.
Specifically, the example of St. Gianna provides a fundamental role model of the ideal life led by and following the moral precepts given at the time of baptism as a child of God as every baby in baptized in the Catholic Church. Through devout loyalty to the teachings of God through Jesus Christ, St. Gianna represents the kind of dedication signifying the moral fiber of the family every contemporary Catholic faces in a spiritual war waged against the traditions sacred to Catholicism about family, marriage, faith, religion, life, and its moral underpinnings in a secular world (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008).
The example of St. Gianna living her life without compromise embracing the precepts of morality connected to the sacredness of life in light of the challenges of modern living reveals loyalty and fidelity to God. This emerges as a life free from succumbing to both false and transitory based values typical of the secular world (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008).
The relevancy of the life of St. Gianna receiving the recognition as an example of the correct moral ideal representing the teachings of Jesus links to her sainthood specific to showing people they too can live by her example without unrealistic demands. While the Dr. Mollo proves ethical in her professional behavior it is the moral bindings of her faith that provide the means for others understanding a mother’s sacrifice where she emerges as a courageous individual of faith. Her death resulting from the difficulty of her last pregnancy by sacrificing her own life ensuring the life of her unborn child remains the framework of the moral conviction of her faith in the preservation of the innocence of life in the birth of humans (Saintgianna.org, 2014).
Biographically the life of St. Gianna reveals an ongoing examination of how she continually challenged her role as a wife, mother, contemporary doctor, and as a modern woman to put the values of her Catholic faith to sustaining the ideals of the Church view in each of these roles. She proved she maintained a spiritual reservoir available to her in the face of making difficult decisions showing courage directly drawn from divine mercy and grace she held as her guiding principle living a moral life (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008).
The clear intention of the Catholic Church canonizing this woman to sainthood specifically holds her as the example to every Catholic believer. This is a direct example that while indeed she is the proper example of the devout wife, mother, professional woman nonetheless the sanctity of her life does not have to remain so rare and idealized that no one pragmatically cannot follow her moral example. Herein lay the special characteristic of St. Gianna and her contribution to moral ideals of the Catholic Church (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008).
Therefore, from the framework of the religious contentions of morality, from the ideals of the trust in faith proclaimed by the Church, St. Gianna contribution to morality is simply showing that trusting in the divine providence of the Will of God with complete fidelity is a realistic moral path. From the Catholic perspective, the contribution to morality expressed in the sainthood of Dr. Mollo proves how meditating in prayer remembering the life of this sainted woman creates a profound essence of moral fortitude through an understanding gained that life has hope and that each who believes can and will do better morally ((Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008). Understanding the truism of St. Gianna role as a professional medical doctor specializing in pediatrics is the basis of her contribution to health care in general adds another dimension on the decision of the Church making her a saint.
Contribution to Health
Catholic Bioethics
In the context of Dr. Molla, a practicing doctor specializing in pediatrics again, the spiritual underpins her contribution to health in this particular field. Practicing her belief in the sanctity of life as it emerges through the bonds of marriage and parenthood, Dr. Molla worked diligently within the ideals of the Catholic bioethics early on. Understanding the difference between bioethics as compared to Catholic precepts of bioethics as related to the specific actions of individuals and the ideal behavior of people according to Catholicism as typified by the actions of St. Gianna as Dr. Molla as ascribed by St. Thomas Aquinas.
As a person of action in her role as a faith-led Catholic doctor of children, Dr. Molla exalted and applied St. Aquinas directive that human act is the intention, the decision, and the execution of behavior (Austriaco, 2011). In the case of Gianna Beretta Mollo, these three characteristics never failed putting God as the direction of this for His Purpose.
Working with pregnant women faced with issues where the question of the survival of the baby arose, Dr. Mollo determinedly called on her faith in the belief in life to safe every baby possible (Wallace & Jablonski, 2012; McKenna, 2008). Aligned again, to Catholic bioethics clearly understood and embraced by Dr. Molla her contribution to healthcare included faith-led prayer as a pre-requisite of her intentions in preserving not only the life of unborn babies in her medical care but also of their mothers at all times weighing and emulating the belief in the Will of God in all things.
Austriaco (2011) explains, “Not surprisingly, therefore, the acting person is called to order to (her) passions so that they are directed to authentic good (p.16).” In this, the actions of Dr. Mollo contributions to healthcare directly aligns to relegation to St. Gianna as a pious and dedicated servant of God in every aspect of her life role including physician.
Discussion
The Argument of Sainthood
Saints according to Catholicism intercede for humans in seeking the help of God in times of trial and indecision. His eminence the Pope explains, "The extreme sacrifice she sealed with her life testifies that only those who have the courage to give of themselves totally to God and to others are able to find fulfillment (saintgianna.com, 2014).” It is this spiritual fulfillment she experienced by dedicating her life in true service to God in the temporal world is the means that clearly lifts St. Gianna to the realm of sainthood and one that few can argue holds credibility.
Taking an outside view of St. Gianna as a working mother living a service-filled life to family and her community there emerges a sense of connection when considering her genuineness as related to her religious framework but more significantly as an example of a person of true faith in the positon of God in relation to humans.
It is not so much the fact that St. Gianna raised, in a devoutly Catholic family that led to her choices in life that emulated the teachings of God through Jesus but rather, the description as previously discussed about St. Thomas Aquinas and the three areas of behavior people choose in making decisions. The argument for the validity of sainthood applied to Gianna Beretta Mollo clearly aligns to every moment of her life in making decisions as a daughter, student, wife, mother, physician, and as an individual put God as the director of everything.
In her youth, spiritual exercises based upon those of St. Ignatius Loyola provided a steppingstone for her intentions of living a life where all her decisions put the teaching of God as her guide (saintgianna.com, 2014). Her story shows she never wavered from this intention and that alone provides praise of her as a person worthy of the title of a saint.
Her decision studying medicine coincides with her joining the Catholic Action movement proved a pivotal time where the foundations of the organization promoting spirituality through following Christ’s example of prayer, service, and of sacrifice clearly became the framework of all her actions leading to the choice of saving her last daughter at birth that culminated in her own death.
The choice of studying medicine was a decision she explained was in her view the best way to give people assistance both physically and spiritually and she relegated the choice as a true calling of God. Having made this declaration and followed by the testament of her spirit-filled life as a devoted Christian wife, mother, doctor, and spiritual role model to all who knew or had contact with her, there is little argument that St. Gianna was indeed, chosen, by God to serve Him by serving everyone she met. This is the substance of sainthood and seals any pragmatic argument that would say otherwise. Conclusion
As postulated in the introduction, the canonization by the Catholic Church in 2004 of Gianna Beretta Molla as a patron saint of mothers, physicians, and preborn children is a remarkable story of human faith in her religious convictions as both an ethical physician and as a follower of the teachings of God through Jesus Christ his Son. The research and investigation of life of St. Gianna provides a genuine example of a layperson making a genuine choice of action to emulate the even clearer example of the life of Jesus teaching the Word of God as a message of hope and of service.
Consequently, the previous discourse provided in this document clearly presented the conviction of Gianna Beretta Mollo as a young Catholic girl convinced God wanted her to serve him as a doctor. With marriage, motherhood, and her work specializing in pediatric medicine every decision St. Gianna made in her life began and ended with the direction of God to serve. This was the case until God took her home on the day she chose to save the life of her fourth and last child sacrificing her life so that an innocent may live. This is truly without argument the stuff of sainthood.
References
Austriaco, N. P. (2011). Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics. © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press.
Catholic online.com. (2014). St. Giana Beretta Molla. Retrieved from
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=6985
SaintGianna.org. (2014). Saint Gianna Beretta Molla. Retrieved from
http://saintgianna.org/main.htm
McKenna, T. J., (2008). St. Gianna Molla a Modern Day Hero of Divine Love. San Diego: Catholic Action for Faith and Family
Wallace, S. H., & Jablonski, P. E. (2012). Saint Gianna Beretta Molla: The Gift of Life. © 2012, Daughters of Saint Paul.
