Carla Ronci

Ronci was born on 11 April 1936 in the "Aiuto Materno" maternity hospital in Rimini, She was baptised two days later in the same hospital. The eldest of three children, she grew up in , a coastal, suburban north of Rimini, in the parish of the Church of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel. from her fifth grade, she learned to be a seamstress, and looked after a goat to procure fresh milk. In her spare time, Ronci was a babysitter and helped in the family shop. == Religious life ==

Discernment with the Ursulines Ronci began frequenting the Ursuline Sisters of Verona in 1950, aged 14, during the holy year proclaimed by Pope Pius XII. She was struck by the nuns who ran the kindergarten in Torre Pedrera, and began her spiritual journey, guided by the nuns and her parish priest. She would organise dressmaking workshops for young girls at her home, which became popular social events as well as catechetical classes, a yearly pilgrimage to a sanctuary, an annual children's festival, a play on the parish priest's birthday, and a fabric flower fundraiser for a Catholic university. including in animating the liturgy, the maintenance of the parish library, In 1960, Ronci came into contact with the secular institute Ancelle di Mater Misericordiae of Macerata. After attending a course of spiritual exercises with them, she applied to join in 1961. On 6 January 1963, Ronci made her profession of vows, which she offered particularly for the sanctity of priests. Ronci continued to live in Torre Pedrera, working for Gioventù Femminile, the youth wing of Azione Cattolica. In October 1965, Ronci was entrusted with a small catechetical group for teenagers. == Death ==

In August 1969, Ronci was diagnosed with liver cancer. Following the cancer's spread to her lungs, she was admitted to the Sant'Orsola Hospital in Bologna on 21 January 1970. On 1 April 1970, she was admitted to the "Villa Maria" clinic in Rimini for palliative care, where she was ministered the Last Rites. She died at 5.05pm on 2 April 1970, aged 33, and was buried in Torre Pedrera's Church of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel. == Beatification ==

Ronci's postulator was Don Fausto Lanfranchi, a priest who was vice-postulator for Alberto Marvelli and Oreste Benzi, and postulator for Sandra Sabattini. Ronci was proclaimed Venerable by Pope John Paul II on 7 July 1997. She is remembered on the day of her death, 2 April. == Legacy ==

Roci's marble funerary urn in the Church of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel in Torre Pedrera remains a place of pilgrimage. A primary school in Torre Pedrera is named after Ronci. In April 2011, a square in Montecorvino Pugliano was dedicated to her. Her writings have been translated into German, Japanese and Polish, and a German-language website was dedicated to her in 2018. Amici di Alberto e Carla, a biennial magazine published by the Diocese of Rimini in English and Italian, disseminates information about the lives of Ronci and Alberto Marvelli. In March 2018, the magazine reported 9,000 subscribers in Italian and 1,400 in English. In summer 2009, the Centro Studi Lauretani, in collaboration with the Ancelle di Mater Misericordiae, hosted a devotional exhibition on Ronci's life in Loreto. A play about Ronci's life was due to be performed in Rimini's Church of San Martino di Bordonochio in February 2020, but was cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic. == References ==