The Schoolgirl Saint: The courage of Chiara Badano has propelled her towards ... - Daily Mail
In a sun-filled garden that could be in Italy but is, in fact, in London, Maria Teresa Badano is telling me about her daughter. ‘One is the joy I felt when Chiara was born,’ she explains. Maria Teresa and her husband Ruggero, now both 79, waited more than a decade after they were married for the birth of their only child, who was only 18 when she died of bone cancer. And now they are waiting again: but this time, it is for the call from the Vatican which will confirm that Chiara is to be made a saint. Four years ago she was beatified – one rung below canonisation – giving her the title of Blessed Chiara Badano and her own special feast day each 29 October, when people remember her and call on her to intercede for them. In December 2009, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the miracle of a young Italian boy whose parents prayed for Chiara to intercede and heal him from meningitis that was destroying his organs. Chiara’s sainthood would be only the second time in history that a parent has seen their child canonised (the first was in 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared Maria Goretti a saint in the presence of her mother). She would be 43 now: a wife and mother, probably, since these were among her ambitions, and Maria Teresa and Ruggero would be grandparents. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
