Maria Assunta Pallotta

Maria Assunta Pallotta (20 August 1878 - 7 April 1905), born Assunta Maria Pallotta, was an Italian Roman Catholic nun who served as a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary and also as part of the missions to China in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion.

Following the recognition of two miracles, Pope Pius XII celebrated her beatification on 7 November 1954.

Early life Maria Assunta Pallotta was born on 20 August 1878 to Luigi Pallotta and Eufrasia Casali. She was the first of six children and had one sister and four brothers. She was baptized on the following day, 21 August (in the names of Assunta Maria Liberata), and was confirmed at the age of two on 7 July 1880, receiving her Confirmation from the Bishop of Ascoli Piceno, Bartolomeo Ortolani.

She began her schooling in 1884, at the age of six, attending until the age of eight in 1886. While she learned to read and write, she did not receive a formal education. The two processes were then ratified and validated on 13 November 1928 and allowed for Rome to investigate the cause themselves.

On 28 February 1932 she was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Pius XI acknowledged the fact that Pallotta had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue which was deemed to be exercised to an extraordinary degree.

Located in the city of Petaling Jaya, in the state of Selangor, Malaysia, Assunta Hospital was founded by a group of missionary sisters from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) in 1954. The Hospital had its beginnings during the pre-independence days and was founded under the directives of the Catholic Hierarchy in Kuala Lumpur. Four sisters from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) started a tiny clinic (named Ave Maria) in Section 1, Road 4 in Petaling Jaya where the medical needs of the underprivileged were attended to. The present hospital was successfully completed in 1959 to cope with the expanding population of the new township of Petaling Jaya.