ACI Prensa Staff, 29 January, 2025 / 1:00 pm (ACI Africa).
The Vatican has issued a decree recognizing the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Luigina Sinapi, declaring her “venerable.” The Italian woman was a lay mystic who had a vision of Jesus and the Virgin Mary and maintained a friendship with St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Italy, better known as Padre Pio.
Driven by her deep love for Jesus from an early age and claiming to have had visions of Mary, Jesus, and angels, her mother took her, in the mid-1920s, to San Giovanni Rotondo to meet Padre Pio, the saint recognized for bearing the stigmata on his hands, feet, and side. From that time, she maintained a close relationship with him, receiving his guidance and spiritual support throughout her life.
Sinapi was born Sept. 8, 1916, in Itri, Italy, and was baptized eight days later. According to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, at age 15 she felt the call to religious life and entered the Institute of the Pious Society of the Daughters of St. Paul in Rome. However, she had to leave the institute due to serious health problems.
The dicastery states that in November 1931, after the death of her parents, she was taken in by an aunt in Rome. To cover the costs of her stay, she began working as a domestic servant and later found employment at a post office and then at the Central Statistical Office.
Years later, Sinapi fell ill with cancer and was on the verge of death. However, on Aug. 15, 1935, the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, she received the anointing of the sick and had a vision of Jesus and Mary, who miraculously healed her. From then on, she decided to live offering her sufferings for the evils of the world and for the salvation of priests and all souls.