Maria Troncatti
Italian missionary (1883–1969)
Feast: 25 August (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 25 November 2024 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2024)
Who they were
Maria Troncatti was born at Córteno Golgi, in Lombardy, on 16 February 1883, and joined the Salesian Sisters, the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. She trained as a nurse, served in the First World War, and in 1922 went as a missionary to Ecuador.
For more than forty years she worked among the Shuar people of the Amazon forest as nurse, catechist and peacemaker. She died in a plane crash at Sucúa, Ecuador, on 25 August 1969.
The miracles
Josefa Yolanda Solórzano Pisco — Portoviejo, Ecuador — April–May 2002
In April 2002 a woman fell ill with what seemed like flu, and within days in hospital she was prostrate, with headaches, abdominal pain, vomiting, jaundice and failing vital signs. Her family took her home so that she could die there. A Salesian priest told them about Sister Maria and urged them to pray to her. At dawn on 10 May 2002 everyone saw her begin to recover: consciousness, breathing and speech came back and the jaundice and pain faded.
Juwa Juank Kankua Bosco — Morona Santiago, Ecuador — February 2015
On 2 February 2015 a Shuar man born in 1975 suffered an open head wound with a shattered skull, loss of brain tissue and diffuse brain damage, and fell into a coma that became a vegetative state. His brother-in-law and sister began praying to Blessed Maria Troncatti, and a large picture of her was hung in the flat where he was cared for, fed by tube, with no speech therapy. Between late March and early April 2015 he dreamed of a woman dressed in white, and he recovered. On 7 March 2024 the Vatican's medical board found the healing rapid, complete, lasting and inexplicable.
Why that counted as sanctity
The case of Josefa Yolanda Solórzano Pisco was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle, opening the way to beatification. Beatification followed on 24 November 2012. The case of Juwa Juank Kankua Bosco was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 25 November 2024, opening the way to canonisation.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of St Maria Troncatti, with both miracles
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q11769202 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Maria Troncatti (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.