Paola Elisabetta Cerioli

Paola Elisabetta Cerioli (28 January 1816 – 24 December 1865), born Costanza Cerioli, was an Italian Roman Catholic widow and the founder of both the Institute of Sisters of the Holy Family and the congregation of the Family of Bergamo.

Pope Pius XII beatified her on 19 March 1950 while Pope John Paul II canonized her in 2004.

Life Childhood Costanza Cerioli was born in 1816 in Soncino, Lombardy as the last of sixteen children of Francesco Cerioli and Francesca Corniani. Her parents were members of the nobility.

At the age of eleven in 1827 she was sent to school in Bergamo where she would be educated until 1832. She was a frail child plagued with a heart condition throughout her life. Though she became somewhat of a loner the experience helped her religious convictions and aided her in granting her inner strength and further motivation.

Marriage Cerioli returned to Soncino where an arranged marriage awaited her. At the age of nineteen in 1835 she married Gaetano Busecchi (aged 59) - the widower of a countess. She accepted the proposal and was married on 30 April 1835. During the marriage - which lasted for 19 years - she had to deal with her husband's difficult character and poor health. Of the four children she gave birth to three of them died after being premature. Her sole child Carlo died at the age of sixteen It was during this time that Cerioli took the name of Paola Elisabetta. The men's Congregation of the Holy Family was founded on 4 November 1863. That year she opened another country house, the Villacampagna di Soncino for orphaned boys.

In a homily on 16 May 2004 John Paul II said, "Paola Elisabetta understood that families remain strong when the bonds among their members are sustained and kept together by sharing the values of faith and a Christian way of life."