Maria_Crocifissa_di_Rosa
Maria Crocifissa di Rosa
Italian Roman Catholic saint
Maria Crocifissa Di Rosa (6 November 1813 – 15 December 1855) - born as Paola Francesca Di Rosa - was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Ancelle della carità (1839).[1] Di Rosa worked first at her father's spinning mill where she - with his encouragement - tended to the spiritual and material needs of the female workers while gathering several women to dedicate their collective efforts to caring for the poor; this formed the basis for the establishment of her religious congregation.[2] Her apostolate prioritized tending to the ill in hospitals and to soldiers going to the front.[3][4]
Her beatification was celebrated in mid-1940 and Pope Pius XII (who beatified her) canonized her over a decade later on 12 June 1954.[2]