Chiara Corbella Petrillo’s husband has taken advantage of the publication of his first book to warn against what he sees as the misuse of his wife’s memory. She died in 2012 at the age of twenty-eight after postponing part of her treatment for a carcinoma to avoid endangering her third child during pregnancy. From the interview given to Il Messaggero, one fragment in particular has circulated widely: the one pointing to certain «quite politicized» Catholic movements that, according to him, would like to turn her into «a kind of flag for the pro-life movement.» Much less attention has been paid to the rest of his response, in which Enrico Petrillo clarifies that Chiara was opposed to abortion, that she did not give her life to advance an ideology, and that for her Christ was the driving force behind everything.
The interview has made Italian headlines with a formulation that anticipates the Church: that of a future blessed, when she is not. The canonical status is different and does not allow for alternative interpretations. Chiara Corbella has been a Servant of God since September 21, 2018, the date of the edict with which the Vicariate of Rome opened the cause. The diocesan investigation into her life, virtues, and reputation for holiness was closed on June 21, 2024, at the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Since then, the dossier has been in the Roman phase, and the postulation has reported the submission of the positio to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. There is no decree on the heroism of her virtues, so she is not venerable either, and no miracle has been recognized.
The book is titled Solo il vino migliore, published by Edizioni San Paolo, and is scheduled to be presented on September 15 at Sapienza University. In it, and in the interview, Petrillo argues that his wife’s memory runs the risk of being manipulated or distorted, and the first example he gives has nothing to do with politics: he has had to stop writings signed by people who claimed to have spoken with the family without ever having done so, and he has seen things put into Chiara’s mouth that she never said.
Only later comes the passage that has become the headline. Asked who is attempting this manipulation, Petrillo mentions those politicized Catholic movements that, he says, would like to cage Chiara’s figure and make her a champion of the battle against abortion. The following sentence, however, dismantles the reading that has been made of the previous one: Chiara was opposed to abortion, and what he considers limiting is not that this be remembered, but that she be reduced to that alone, detached from her faith and the consistency with which she tried to live every moment as a Christian. Regarding the postponement of part of the treatment, he adds that his wife made that decision knowing she was a daughter of God and that, if one is Christian, life is defended from beginning to end, with constancy and coherence. Presenting her only as a champion of an anti-abortion crusade therefore seems to him reductive and simplistic.
The interview actually begins with an episode of political appropriation that he does not reject. Chiara Corbella was one of sixteen Italian women cited by Giorgia Meloni in her investiture speech on October 25, 2022, alongside Nilde Iotti, Tina Anselmi, Grazia Deledda, Rita Levi Montalcini, and Oriana Fallaci. Petrillo responds that he did not expect it, that he feels honored, that he has never spoken with Meloni nor does he know her, and that it is worth remembering that his wife was an utterly ordinary girl. What bothers him, therefore, does not seem to be that those in government cite her, but that she is turned into an emblem of a single battle.
The story is well known in Italy and much less so in Spain. Chiara Corbella, born in Rome in 1984, met Enrico Petrillo in 2002 in Medjugorje and they married on September 21, 2008. Their first two children, Maria Grazia Letizia and Davide Giovanni, were born with severe malformations and died shortly after birth, after being baptized. During her third pregnancy she was diagnosed with tongue carcinoma. She underwent a first operation and later postponed the next phase of treatment to avoid harming the child; she resumed it after the birth of Francesco, when the tumor had already spread. She died on June 13, 2012, in Pian della Carlotta, in Cerveteri. Francesco is now fifteen years old. His father, a physiotherapist in palliative care, says he has seen many people die and no one with that kind of joy.
The result has its irony. A man who asks that his wife not be reduced to a slogan has seen his interview reduced, within hours, to a slogan about pro-life movements. The sentence that explains everything else—that for Chiara Christ was the driving force behind everything—has not made the headlines.
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