Saint Gianna with Pietro during their honeymoon at Taormina, Messina, Italy, October 1955.
Saint Gianna with Pietro and their children: Pierluigi, Mariolina and Laura at Courmayeur, Aosta, Summer 1960.
Pietro, with Gianna Emanuela on his side, greets deeply moved Pope Saint John Paul II in the Square of Saint’s Peter Basilica in Rome on May 16, 2004, day of Gianna’s Canonization.
Saint Gianna with Pietro during their honeymoon at Taormina, Messina, Italy, October 1955.
“Saint Gianna and her saintly husband, Pietro, are contemporary heroes of the much-needed
New Evangelization promoted by Pope Saint John Paul II, especially regarding the inviolability of
innocent and defenseless human life, and the integrity of marriage and family as the cradle of human life.”
- Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
Welcome to the Official Website
of the SAINT GIANNA BERETTA MOLLA AND PIETRO MOLLA FOUNDATION, more briefly referred to as “Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla Foundation”, an IRC Section 501(c)(3)
Non-Profit Corporation located in North Dakota, United States of America.
The Foundation pursues exclusively essential religious, educational and charitable purposes, aiming to honor, perpetuate and spread around the world the memory, example, testimony and spirituality
of Saint Gianna and her saintly spouse Pietro.
His Eminence, Cardinal Raymond Leo BURKE, is Founder and President of the Foundation.
“Gianna, with the certainty that God wanted us united, you and I have embarked on our new life.
In these months it has been all a crescendo of understanding and affection.
Now, our understanding is perfect, because Heaven is our light, and the Divine Law is our guide [...].
Now, our love is full because we are one heart and one soul, one feeling and love, because our love, strong and pure, knows how to wait for the blessing of Heaven.”(1)
“Pietro my dearest,
[...] So, with God's help and blessing we will do everything we can so that our new family can be a small cenacle where Jesus reigns over all our affections, desires, and actions.
My Pietro, there are only a few days, and I feel very moved to be so near to receiving the Sacrament of Love. We become God's collaborators in His creation, so we can give Him children who love Him and serve Him. [...]”
(Saint Gianna's letter to her fiancé, Pietro Molla, of September 13, 1955)
“O Lord and our Heavenly Mother bless our Love and make it fruitful!
May the day come soon when Gianna, happier than ever before, can share with me and our loved ones the holy announcement that a new life lives in her!
After this coming Christmas, may the next Christmases see our children in prayer before the Baby Jesus!
Give us the grace and the joy, O Lord, O Heavenly Mother, to bring our children before your altars and to consecrate them to You!
Keep us, O Lord, always eager, like the Sacred Family of Nazareth, for the holy education of our children!”(1)
“Pietro my dearest,
[...] What a dear little husband and saintly dad our children have! Even in your work which takes up so much of you, you find time to always think of us, to pray a lot for your dear little family! [...]”
(Saint Gianna's letter to her spouse, Pietro Molla, of July 18, 1957)
“Dearest Pietro,
[...] Thinking about you, I am convinced once again even more that you are not only dear to Our Lord, but very dear, because He has entrusted to you, depriving you of Gianna, the highest and most useful and precious mission to save souls, the mission of sorrow, the apostolate of suffering. Jesus wanted to turn you into an apostle; with your very great suffering, accepted with such disposition of heart, you can do more good to souls than we can with all our sermons. [...]
Jesus redeemed us, not by preaching, but dying on the cross, and He wants this to be our missionary work. Before Jesus you are now a true missionary, rejoice therefore: to save souls is what is most valuable in this world; Gianna is doing it from heaven above, and you by wandering here on earth with the big cross that He gave you. [...].”
(Letter of Venerable Father Alberto Beretta O.F.M. Cap.
to his brother-in-law, Pietro Molla, of December 5, 1962, after the death of his spouse, Saint Gianna)
“Pietro dearest,
[...] Courage, sursum corda! It is the design of God, of His Divine Providence, inscrutable to us; we know that it is a design of love.
By testing you so hard, in depriving you of what you hold most dear in this life, He manifests His predilection for you, because He wants you a day very close to Him, very high in the Glory of Paradise, close to Gianna and Mariolina. [...].”
(Letter of Venerable Father Alberto Beretta O.F.M. Cap.
to his brother-in-law, Pietro Molla, of March 13, 1964, after the death of his daughter, Mariolina)
(Gianna Emanuela Molla,
last child of Saint Gianna and Pietro Molla)