Maria Troncatti

In 1922, Sister Maria Troncatti was sent to Ecuador. After three years in Chunchi, she settled in the Amazon rainforest among the Shuar indigenous people. Nicknamed "Mamacita" or "Madrecita," she worked there tirelessly as a nurse, surgeon, teacher, and catechist. She earned the trust of the tribe by saving the chief's daughter, who had been wounded by a gunshot. She worked actively for the emancipation of Shuar women against forced marriages and acted as a peace mediator between settlers and the indigenous people. She died on August 25, 1969, in a plane crash while traveling to Quito.

The diocesan process for her beatification opened in 1986 and closed in 1987. Pope Benedict XVI declared her Venerable on November 8, 2008. The miracle accepted for her beatification is the unexplained healing in 2002 of Josefa Yolanda Solórzano Pisco, who was suffering from a deadly form of malaria, after her family invoked the intercession of Sister Maria Troncatti. This miracle was officially approved on May 10, 2012.

Sister Maria Troncatti was beatified on November 24, 2012, in Macas (Ecuador) by Cardinal Angelo Amato. The second miracle, approved in 2024 by Pope Francis, concerns the instantaneous healing in 2015 of Juwa Juank Kankua Bosco, a Shuar carpenter who was the victim of a severe open head trauma. She was solemnly canonized on October 19, 2025, in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican by Pope Leo XIV.

The spirituality of Saint Maria Troncatti is based on the Salesian charism, marked by joy, sacrifice, and absolute trust in Providence. Her relics rest in Macas. Today, she is honored as a pioneer of human rights, the emancipation of indigenous women, and intercultural reconciliation in Ecuador.