Luisa Piccarreta

Luisa Piccarreta (23 April 1865–4 March 1947) was a Catholic mystic and member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Her writings and spirituality, for a time condemned by the Catholic Church, centered on union with the will of God. A cause for beatification was opened in 1994 but experienced delays due to perceived issues in her writings, and the canonical process was suspended in 2024 during a doctrinal review of her writings.

Biography Luisa Piccarreta was born in the comune of Corato in the former Province of Bari, southern Italy, on 23 April 1865 to Vito Nicola and Rosa Tarantino Piccarreta. She received only a first grade education. From the age of sixteen she was bedridden. At the age of eighteen she joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Five years later, she stated she experienced a "mystical marriage" and felt a calling to "live in the Divine Will" and promote it. She stated that she received daily visions from Jesus. Piccarreta claimed that the unknown illness which assailed her was an "interior stigmata". Biographers have stated that she ate no food but the Eucharist for 60 years.

She began writing diaries of her experiences in 1891 at the request of her spiritual director. The Archbishop of Trani assigned a special confessor to her and set limits on her self-mortifications, including requiring her to eat at least once per day. Piccarreta died of pneumonia on 4 March 1947, at the age of 81. The Cause of Beatification remained open and pending throughout the doctrinal review of Piccarreta's writings. However, the canonical process was temporarily suspended in January 2024 because of "theological, Christological, and anthropological" issues relating to her writings. Following further study and clarifications submitted by the postulation, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith granted a nihil obstat in June 2024 for the resumption of the canonical process, while requiring the preparation of an official critical edition of Piccarreta's writings and emphasizing that groups dedicated to the Divine Will should remain in communion with Catholic doctrine, their bishops, and the pastoral life of the Church.