Catholic Saint's Relics to Be Venerated in Plymouth

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The relics of a Catholic virgin martyr saint known for forgiving her killer won’t be displayed at a Michigan prison after the state Department of Corrections cited security concerns in denying the Vatican request.

“We decided not to go forward,” state corrections department spokesperson Chris Paulz said of the decision to deny the Vatican’s request to display the saint’s relics at the Macomb Correctional Facility at New Haven, according to the Detroit Free Press.

St. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old Italian girl stabbed to death while resisting a sexual assault in 1902. The relics of the saint, the Catholic Church’s youngest canonized saint and known as a model of mercy, are embedded in a silver box inside a wax likeness and displayed in a glass.

“We had concerns about security in the facility, and concerns about bringing such a venerated item into our facility, and keep it protected and keep our facility protected,” Paulz said.

The remains were previously displayed at the Sing Sing prison outside New York City as part of the Vatican-sponsored Pilgrimage of Mercy U.S. Tour. Michigan corrections department officials reportedly did not consult with authorities at Sing Sing before making the decision.

Metro Detroit residents will have a chance to see at three parishes during a multi-state tour, including:

• Thursday, Oct. 8, Our Lady of Good Counsel, 47650 North Territorial Road, Plymouth; public veneration from 1-11:30 p.m.; solemn mass at 7 p.m.
• Saturday, Oct. 10, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, 41233 Ryan Road, Sterling Heights; solemn mass at 9 a.m., public veneration until 10 p.m.
• Sunday, Oct. 11, St. Scholastica Church, 17320 Rosemount Ave., Detroit; solemn mass at 10 a.m., public veneration at 11 p.m.

No parish venerations are planned on Friday, which had been reserved for display at the prison.

The Rev. Carlos Martins, who is overseeing the relics during the Pilgrimage of Mercy Tour, said in an email to the Free Press that he’s “officially disappointed” that prison officials didn’t contact him directly so they could resolve security concerns.

The relics were previously displayed at parishes in Philadelphia in advance of Pope Francis’ visit and in New York last week. They went to the heart of the pontiff’s message of ministering to to those living on periphery of society, Martins said.

“St. Maria Goretti is the patroness of inmates and it saddens me that the inmates at Macomb will not get to receive her,” Martins said in the email.

Maria is said to have forgiven her attacker, Alessandro Serenelli, as she lay dying of infection from 14 stab wounds inflicted with a metal file.

Serenelli was sentenced to 30 years in prison. According to the official Vatican account, he had been in prison for six years when Maria appeared to him in a vision and handed him 1 white lily flowers she had picked from a garden.

The gesture of forgiveness is said to have filled Serenelli with the light of the Holy Spirit. He immediately became contrite, and finished the rest of his sentence in tranquility. His behavioral change was so dramatic that he was released three years early. He eventually joined the Capuchin Franciscans as a lay brother.

She was officially canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 24, 1950.

The relics are currently in Massachusetts, will go to Connecticut on Tuesday and to New Jersey on Wednesday before arriving in Michigan on Thursday.

From Michigan, the relics go to Chicago-area parishes in Illinois, then on a Midwest tour that includes Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio. The tour has stops later this fall across the South and Southeast United States, and in the Western U.S. in 2016. The full tour schedule is available here.