Paola Renata Carboni

Who was Paola Renata Carboni?

Venerable Paola Renata Carboni was an Italian teenager who is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church.

Carboni was the fourth of eight children of a physician who refused to permit his children to attend church or be instructed in religion. An aunt secretly had the girl baptized and taught her the beginnings of the catechism. When she was fourteen she and one of her sisters were sent to a separate school and lived near a devout Catholic family who took them to Mass. Both Carboni and her sister began attending church and studying with a priest, who secretly gave them the sacrament of Holy Communion and confirmation. The girls eventually told their father, who continued to object to their religious practice but reluctantly allowed them to continue attending church.

Carboni had hoped to become a missionary but her weak health, including a form of colic she suffered from age thirteen, prevented it. She became a teacher instead at a Catholic school, where she taught for two years. She also joined the group Catholic Action and served as diocesan secretary of the Female Youth. Younger girls often came to her for help with their problems and spiritual counsel.