Vatican City, Jan 25, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Rita Federizzi has been compared with the much-loved and recently canonized St. Gianna Beretta Molla.
Just like St. Gianna, Federizzi died and was buried yesterday after refusing cancer treatment that would have required her to have an abortion. The 41-year-old died after having given birth three months ago to a baby boy, named Federico.
Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano wrote of Federizzi: "She was aware that if she gave birth she wouldn't have had any hope of surviving. Despite that she went through with her choice, the choice of welcoming new life even at the cost of her own death."
"Rita's choice, which I always shared, was a choice of faith," her husband, Enrico Ferrari, told the Italian news agency ANSA. Federizzi was very active with a Marian group.
"Whenever someone recommended abortion as the only way to escape (death), she would say, 'It's as if they're asking me to kill one of my other two children to save my skin,'” he said.
Federizzi leaves her husband and two other children, ages 10 and 12.