Blessed Maria Costanza Panas

Maria Costanza Panas, born Agnese Pacifica Panas, (15 January 1896 - 28 May 1963), was an Italian Capuchin Poor Clare. Panas did her education in northern Italian cities before she worked as a teacher. It was not until a short while following her teaching career that she decided to become a nun and so entered a convent in secret after her parents and uncle exhibited opposition to her desire. In the convent she served as novice mistress and served as an abbess on two separate occasions and was even elected to a prominent religious council despite her several severe illnesses during the late 1950s. The beatification process for Panas launched in 1983 in the Diocese of Fabriano-Matelica and she became titled as a Servant of God. The cause gained greater traction on 10 October 2016 after Pope Francis signed a decree that recognized her heroic virtue and named her as venerable. He approved her beatification in 2022 and she was beatified in Fabriano on 9 October 2022. Agnese Pacifica Panas was born on 15 January 1896 in Alano di Piave in the Belluno province to Antonio Benvenuto Panas and Maria Biasotto as the fourth of six children. Panas had three sisters preceding her: Clelia and then both Angelina and Adele who died in their infancies. In her own childhood she fell ill which caused her mother distress since she still was mourning the loss of Angelina and Adele; her mother entrusted her to the intercession of the Madonna di Monte Berico (venerated in the north) and Panas managed to recover. Her artisan parents lost their jobs due to the industrialization in the region and so were forced to emigrate to the United States of America in 1902. Panas was left in the care of her paternal priest uncle Angelo who was a chaplain. Her schooling began under the Canossians in Feltre and later continued in Vicenza and on 5 August 1906 she received her First Communion.