Venerable Maria Laura Mainetti

Maria Laura Mainetti (born Teresina Elsa Mainetti; 20 August 1939 – 6 June 2000) was an Italian religious sister of the Sisters of the Cross. Mother superior of a convent in Chiavenna that specialised in helping juvenile delinquents, she was stabbed to death in a satanic sacrifice by three teenage girls on the night of 6 June 2000. Mainetti's death was declared a martyrdom by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2020, and she was beatified on 6 June 2021, the twenty-first anniversary of her murder. Teresina Elsa Mainetti was born on 20 August 1939 in Villatico, a frazione of Colico, Lecco, Italy, and was baptised two days later. She was the tenth and last child born to Marcellina Gusmeroli (who died when Teresina was 12 days old) and Stefano Mainetti. She attended the Istituto Magistrale run by the Sisters of the Cross in Parma, and decided to join the Sisters of the Cross after turning 18. Mainetti began her postulancy in Rome on 22 August 1957 and was admitted into the novitiate in February 1958. On 15 August 1959, she made her first vows to live according to the evangelical counsels, taking the sister name Laura in honour of the late daughter of another sister. Mainetti made her final vows in La Puye on 25 August 1964. After teaching at primary schools run by the Sisters of the Cross in Vasto, Rome, Parma and Chiavenna, she became mother superior of a convent in Chiavenna specialising in providing help for juvenile delinquents. Around 22:00 on 6 June 2000, Mainetti left her convent in Chiavenna and went to a local public square to meet a girl who had recently requested an appointment via telephone, claiming to have been raped and impregnated and to be considering an abortion. There, Mainetti encountered the girl, Veronica Pietrobelli, and the latter's friends, Milena De Giambattista and Ambra Gianasso.