Bl. Marija Petković

Marija Petković was born in 1892 in Blato, on the Croatian island of Korčula, the sixth of eleven children. Her father was wealthy and generous to the poor.

She went to school with the Servants of Charity, Italian sisters who had come to Blato. In 1906, aged thirteen, she made a private vow to give her life to God. In 1920 she founded the Daughters of Mercy, a congregation that cares for orphans, the poor and the sick. It later spread to South America.

She died in Rome in 1966. John Paul II beatified her in Dubrovnik in 2003.

Marija Petković was beatified in 2003.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.