Leonella Sgorbati

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Sr. Leonella Sgorbati , born as Rosa Sgorbati (born December 9, 1940 in Gazzola near Piacenza ; † September 17, 2006 in Mogadishu ) was an Italian religious sister who was beatified as a martyr in 2018 .

Rosa Sgorbati entered the Order of Consolata Missionary Sisters in Sanfrè , Province of Cuneo , in 1963 . She was given the religious name Leonella and made perpetual vows in 1972 . After training as a nurse in England from 1966 to 1968, she was posted to Kenya in 1970 . From 1993 to 1999 she was the provincial superior of the Kenyan Consolata Missionary Sisters. After a sabbatical year, she went to Mogadishu in Somalia in 2001 to open a nursing school for the SOS Children's Village hospital; since 2002 she was the director of this Hermann Gmeiner school.

At noon on September 17, 2006, a few days after Pope Benedict XVI. Regensburg speech , she was hit in the back by four bullets while crossing a street and died shortly afterwards in hospital. Her bodyguard was also killed. Sr. Leonella had personal protection, as attacks by violent radical Muslims against Christians had been feared for months. Her last words in the hospital were “Perdono, perdono!” (“I forgive, I forgive!”). The assassination attempt has been rated as a reaction to the Pope's speech in Regensburg. Two suspects have been arrested, but judicial investigations have so far remained unsuccessful. Pope Benedict XVI the day after the murder, expressed his deep shock in a condolence telegram to the missionary sisters and paid tribute to Sister Leonella in his address on the Angelus prayer the following Sunday. She was buried in Nairobi , where she had worked for more than thirty years.

Sister Leonella's cross has been in the Church of San Bartolomeo all'Isola in Rome, dedicated to the martyrs of the 20th century , since October 2008 . On November 8, 2017, Pope Francis recognized Leonella Sgorbati's death as martyrdom. Her beatification by him, represented by Cardinal Angelo Amato , took place on May 26, 2018 in Piacenza .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Official text of the Pope's address, German
  2. ↑ Community of St. Egidio: Handing over of the cross by Sister Leonella Sgorbati in St. Bartholomew's Basilica
  3. ^ Decrees of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints . Bulletin of the Vatican Press Office, November 9, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Sgorbati, Leonella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sgorbati, Rosa (maiden name); Sister Leonella
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian nun
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Gazzola near Piacenza
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 2006
Place of death Mogadishu