One day this woman will be a saint | CatholicHerald.co.uk

 You may not have heard of Chiara Petrillo, but you will.  This 28 year old mother, who died after she refused potentially life-saving cancer treatment rather than harm her unborn child (Francesco, who was born healthy) is truly a hero for our times.

Let me quote the last two paragraphs in full:

At a time when the Church is constantly under scrutiny and attack by its enemies and all too often by its friends as well, urging that the Church’s very survival depends on following some latest fad or fashion, Chiara Petrillo shows too that (in Tertullian’s famous saying) the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Christians. For she is a saint and a martyr, a witness. The survival of the Church lies not in fashionable accommodation. It lies in God (emphasis mine)

Chiara Petrillo shows wonderfully well the way God brings forth for us the saints and martyrs that we need in our day. When young girls, often very young girls, use abortion as “emergency contraception” and when young women have been known to get pregnant and then abort the baby just to “check that everything is working properly”, Chiara Petrillo, who would literally die rather than hurt her baby-foetus, is a saint for our times.

One day this woman will be a saint | CatholicHerald.co.uk