In the village of Santa Giulia in Piedmont, Italy, Blessed Teresa Bracco, virgin and martyr, who, a worker in the fields, while the Second World War raged, valiantly defended her chastity and, struck down by the blows of soldiers, fell asleep in death.
Lifespan: 1924–1944
Beatified: 24 May 1998 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 29 August
“Rather than be violated, I prefer to die.”
Teresa Bracco was born in the small comune of Dego, in the province of Savona, on 24 February 1924, the second-youngest of seven children in a deeply devout and Christian family.
Chastity shines forth in Teresa, defended and witnessed unto martyrdom: she was only twenty years old when, during the Second World War, she chose death rather than yield to the violence of a soldier who sought to violate her virginity. That courageous stance was the natural consequence of a firm determination to remain faithful to Christ, a purpose she had expressed on more than one occasion.
When she learned what had happened to other young women in that period of disorder and violence, she declared without hesitation: “Rather than be violated, I prefer to die.”
That is what came to pass during a military round-up. Her martyrdom was the crowning of a journey of Christian maturation, developed day by day through the strength drawn from daily Eucharistic Communion and a profound devotion to the Virgin Mother of God.