Alessandro Serenelli Letter

Alessandro Serenelli was the murderer of eleven year old Maria Goretti. This article features a letter which he wrote towards the end of his life.

When he was twenty he made sexual advances towards Maria, his neighbour, but she refused to submit. He stabbed her fourteen times. She died the next day. Her last words were “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli…and I want him with me in heaven forever. Alessandro was imprisoned for thirty years. He experienced anger, nervousness and a difficult time but eventually repented and found peace. After serving his 27 year sentence he asked pardon from Maria’s mother and from the community on a Christmas mass. He also became a Franciscan lay brother with the Caphucins. A few years before he died in 1970, Alessandro wrote the letter below:

“I’m nearly 80 years old. I’m about to depart.

Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself.

My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.

There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life.

When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed.

If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.

Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I’ve been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.

I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life.” 

Alessandro Serenelli

Read more on Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenelli on: www.mariagoretti.com

Read more:
– Pope Francis’ Quotes About Saints
– Top Popes’ Holiness Quotes