Lenten Campaign 2025
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Before finding her true vocation, Sister Tosca Ferrante was a police officer in Italy. The daughter of a military man from Naples, she joined the police at the age of 19. “My father passed on to me, and to my brother who works in the army, the values of justice and solidarity towards one's neighbor,” she explained in an interview with the Italian media outlet Avvenire on February 8, 2025.
But despite her joy at being part of the national police force, she admits to having felt some anxiety about her future.
“I kept asking myself questions about the meaning of life and how God wanted to share it with me,” she recalls of that particularly intense period.
“What are you becoming?”
And the Lord showed her the way forward during a meeting with a young offender whom she had to keep in custody at the Torpignattara police station in Rome while awaiting instructions.
“This young minor had committed a theft,” recalls Sister Ferrante. “It was his first time. He started to cry, he said he was scared. He asked me to give him a hug and I said 'no.' I couldn't, I was in uniform.”
Her own refusal was a shock to her. The young boy had asked for a hug, a warm and protective gesture, but she had refused him. “When I got home, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, ‘What are you becoming?’” says Sister Ferrante.
This was the beginning of her true encounter with God, the beginning of serious discernment. It led her to join the Queen of Apostles Institute for Vocations, a congregation that is part of the Pauline Family, founded in Italy in 1959 by Father Giacomo Alberione.
A natural transition
“The transition from the police force to religious life was not dramatic for me; it was natural,” says Sister Tosca.
The five years she spent in the police force were in fact a school of humanity and service to others for her.
“I met so many suffering people: delinquents, drug addicts, young people, prostitutes, people who were drunk. I saw so much poverty, so much hunger and also so much evil. These encounters made me understand what God wanted for me.”
Today, at the age of 55, she understands that it was her desire to take care of others, through the gift of her own life, that led her to God. In 2024, she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her religious profession and was appointed Superior General of the Sisters of Mary Queen of Apostles.
She’s also in charge of vocations and youth ministry, as well as coordinating the regional service for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults in Tuscany.
