Blessed Albertina Berkenbrock

Albertina was born on April 11, 1919, in the rural community of São Luís, in the municipality of Imaruí, in Santa Catarina. She was the daughter of Henrique and Josefina Berkenbrock, farmers of German descent — the family still kept its roots in Schöppingen, near Münster — and one of nine children. She was baptized just a few weeks after her birth, on May 25 of that same year, and grew up breathing in the Catholic faith to the simple, hard rhythm of work in the fields.

From an early age the girl stood out for her piety. Confirmed on March 9, 1925, she made her first communion on August 16, 1928 — a day she herself would describe as the most beautiful of her whole life. She had a special devotion to Our Lady and to Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, the patron of her community, and she took daily prayer, Mass, and confession seriously. Those who lived alongside her praised her obedience, her modesty, and her generous heart: she taught catechism to the other children, never struck back at the taunts of her siblings and playmates, and even lovingly cared for the children of the very man who would one day take her life.

On June 15, 1931, Albertina went out looking for an animal that had wandered off. Along the way she came upon Maneco Palhoça, one of her father’s farmhands, who was hauling beans in a cart. When she asked whether he had seen the ox, the man deliberately pointed her toward a patch of scrubland, where he was planning to attack her. There he tried to force her into sin. The girl resisted with all her strength; and her attacker, realizing that he would not get what he wanted and that he would be reported, seized her by the hair and cut her throat with a knife. She was only twelve years old.

Maneco even tried to hide the crime and pin the blame on an innocent man, João Candinho, who was actually arrested. But the truth did not take long to come out: tradition from that time tells that, when the killer was brought close to the girl’s body, the blood from her neck began to flow again as a sign of his guilt. Arrested a few days later, the attacker confessed not only to the murder of Albertina — whom, by his own admission, he had killed because she had resisted — but to other crimes as well. He was tried, convicted, and served his sentence in the city of Laguna. The people of Imaruí, however, no longer had any doubt: that child had died rather than sin.

Albertina’s reputation for holiness carried across the decades. The process investigating her life and martyrdom opened in Tubarão on December 30, 1954, and stretched into the early 2000s. Under Saint Pope John Paul II she received, in 2001, the title of Servant of God, and in 2002 her remains were translated. On December 16, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI recognized that she had been killed “in defensum castitatis” — in defense of chastity — opening the way to her beatification. The solemn ceremony took place in Brazil on October 20, 2007, presided over, in the Pope’s name, by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins. Since then the Church venerates her as Blessed, and her tomb in Imaruí is a destination for pilgrims who come there to seek and to give thanks for graces.