Blessed Maria Troncatti

Maria Troncatti, FMA (16 February 1883 – 25 August 1969) was an Italian Catholic member of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco. Troncatti was from a farming family and entered that congregation in 1907; she worked as a nurse during World War I and became part of the missions in Ecuador from 1922 until her death in a plane crash in 1969. Troncatti was beatified on 24 November 2012 and canonized on 19 October 2025. Maria Troncatti was born in Italy in 1883 to poor farming parents. She attended catechism lessons in her local parish during her childhood and in obedience to her priest decided to wait until adulthood before requesting to be admitted into the Salesian Sisters. Troncatti joined the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco on 15 October 1905 after having commenced her period of the novitiate and she later professed her vows on 17 1908 in Nizza Monferrato. Her father fainted as she left due to the pain of separation. She spent this time in Varazze in Liguria. Troncatti suffered a serious infection in 1909 and later contracted typhoid; this prompted a visit from Michele Rua who blessed her. In 1915 she passed a special course in nursing and used this education during World War I as she tended to ill and wounded soldiers - she also worked for the Red Cross while stationed in Varazze. Troncatti was sent to the missions in Ecuador on 9 November 1922 for a mission of evangelization to work among the Shuar tribe in the Amazon forest; after she established herself there, tribal members dubbed her, “Mamacita". En route to Ecuador, she and her fellow religious boarded a train to Marseille in France and spent over two weeks on a boat to Panama; she then went to Guayaquil in December and then on to Ecuador.