One died in 1969 after mission work in Ecuador; the other died in 1855 after founding a congregation inspired by Vincent de Paul.
Among the seven new saints to be canonized on October 19, 2025, are two Italian nuns. Maria Troncatti (1883-1969) was a missionary in Ecuador for more than 40 years. And Vincenza Maria Poloni (1802-1855) founded a community dedicated to the poorest people in the city of Verona.
A native of the Brescia region, Maria Troncatti took her vows with the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, or Salesians of Don Bosco. Her early years of religious life were marked by poor health. During World War I, she took a special nursing course and devoted herself to providing material and spiritual assistance to wounded soldiers returning from the Austrian front.
In 1915, during a violent flood in Varazze, she miraculously escaped death, an experience that strengthened her desire to become a missionary. After several years in Genoa at an institute for war orphans, she left on November 9, 1922, on a mission to Ecuador to work among the Shuar people (sometimes called Jivaros), who live in the Amazon rainforest.
Once there, she opened a dispensary and devoted herself to serving the local population, which was ravaged by numerous diseases and epidemics (black pox, measles, etc.), and defended women and children who were victims of violent ancestral traditions. Despite the reluctance of the local settlers — the nuns were even targeted by arson — she contributed the first evangelization of this population, among whom she was particularly appreciated. She died at the age of 86 in a plane crash in 1969.
Maria Troncatti was beatified in 2012. The second miracle attributed to her intercession, which led to her canonization, concerns an Ecuadorian woman. In 2002, after falling into a coma following a serious illness, the woman was sent home at her parents' request so that she could die there. A Salesian priest then asked her relatives to pray to the nun: a few days later, the woman came out of her coma and saw the symptoms that had afflicted her gradually disappear.
A nun inspired by Saint Vincent de Paul
Blessed Vincenza Maria Poloni is the co-founder of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy with the German priest Charles Steeb. This nun, who lived most of her life in the dynamic Catholic environment of the city of Verona, then under Austro-Hungarian rule, created this congregation in 1848, dedicated to helping the poor, in keeping with the spirituality of St. Vincent de Paul.
It was while caring for the sick during the cholera epidemic of 1836 that Luigia — her birth name — confirmed her vocation to a life of service. In 1840, she and three companions founded what would later become the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy. Like St. Vincent de Paul, her inspiration, Vincenza Maria called the poor "our masters" and also devoted herself to the education of young people.
Under her leadership, her institute grew rapidly, becoming a model of Christian charity in Verona, according to her biography on the website of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Her congregation still exists today and has 570 religious sisters in 63 communities in Europe, Latin America, and Africa.
Vincenza Maria lived the last years of her life with serious health problems, accepting her suffering with patience and prayer. Vincenza Maria Poloni died in 1855 at the age of 53. The process for her beatification began in 1990, and she was beatified in Verona in 2008.
The miracle that paved the way for her canonization concerns the miraculous healing of a Chilean woman who suffered a serious aortic injury that required major surgery in 2013. Although her condition was life-threatening, she recovered after her nephew invoked the intercession of the Italian nun for her healing, as there is a house of her congregation in the Chilean city of Quilleco.
