THE VATICAN: A mother who refused cancer treatment and died so her fourth child could be born was elevated to sainthood yesterday in a move seen by many as a strong statement from the Vatican against the legalisation of abortion.
Pope John Paul II canonised Gianna Beretta Molla, along with five other men and women, before a crowd of 50,000 pilgrims in St Peter's Square.
In 1961, doctors advised the 39-year-old paediatrician to abort her fourth child so an ovarian cyst could be removed.
She refused, allowing the cyst to grow with the child, and died of the cancer a week after giving birth in 1962.
"I shall accept whatever they will do to me provided they save the child," she is reported to have said.
As a giant colour photograph of a woman holding a child was unveiled on St Peter's Basilica, John Paul praised the exemplary mother, doctor and wife for her "extreme sacrifice".
"May our era rediscover, by the example of Gianna Beretta Molla, the pure, chaste and fertile beauty of conjugal love, lived as a response to the divine calling," he said.
Beretta Molla is the first married woman to become a Catholic saint in modern times, according to the Vatican.
As a result, her widower, Mr Pietro Molla (91), was the first man to attend the canonisation of his wife.
He is reported to have been overwhelmed by the emotion and the heat.
Beretta Molla's four children, including Ms Gianna Emanuela (41), for whom she died, were also present.
The Pope has described abortion as a "legalised crime", and a "kind of silent and cruel selection which unjustly eliminates the weakest members of society".
To become a saint, two miracles need to be attributed to the so-called "martyr of maternal love".
In 1977, a sickly Brazilian woman is said to have survived a dangerous labour after nuns prayed to Beretta Molla.
In 2000, after similar prayers, another Brazilian woman gave birth to a healthy child despite having lost her amniotic fluid in the third month of pregnancy.
Pro-choice campaigners have criticised the canonisation, saying it suggests the church values the life of an unborn child over the health and safety of women.
In the past Vatican officials have said that although the church admires women who sacrifice themselves to save a foetus, it does not oblige anyone to make this choice.
According to Father Brian Johnstone, a bioethics experts at Rome's Alphonsian Academy, the one situation in which Catholic teaching can tolerate the removal of a foetus is if the process is needed to save the mother's life.
Beretta Molla was the most modern of Sunday's new saints.
The other five were all 19th century figures: a Spanish priest Josep Manyanet y Vives, Italians Luigi Orione, Hannibal Maria di Francia and Paola Elisabetta Cerioli, and a Lebanese Maronite priest Naamatallah al-Hardini, who is said to have helped cure the lame.
The latest additions bring the Pope's "saint count" to 482, more saints than all the previous popes created together.
John Paul II, who turns 84 tomorrow, has specialised in turning "normal" people into saints.