Maria Crocifissa Di Rosa - born as Paola Francesca Di Rosa - was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Ancelle della carità (1839). Di Rosa worked first at her father's spinning mill where she - with his encouragement - tended to the spiritual and material needs of the female workers while gathering several women to dedicate their collective efforts to caring for the poor; this formed the basis for the establishment of her religious congregation. Her apostolate prioritized tending to the ill in hospitals and to soldiers going to the front.

December 15

• Ancelle della carità

6 November 1813

1855-12-15

Canonized

12 June 1954

Pope Pius XII

12

Q459108

15