Leonella Sgorbati

Who was Leonella Sgorbati?

Sister Leonella Sgorbati was an Italian Roman Catholic nun who was murdered in Somalia shortly after controversial comments by Pope Benedict XVI concerning Islam.

The true name of sister Leonella Sgorbati was Rosa Maria Sgorbati, and she changed her name when she became a nun.

Sister Leonella was born in 1940 in Gazzola near Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Since she was a teenager she wished to become a missionary nun, but her mother did not approve the choice and ask her to wait until she would be twenty. When finally sister Leonella was twenty, she said she did not change her mind and joined the Consolata Missionary Sisters in San Fre, Cuneo in May 1963 and took her perpetual vows in November 1972.

During this time she followed nursing course in England, and in September 1970 she was appointed to Kenya. From then until 1983 she served alternately at Consolata Hospital Mathari, Nyeri, and Nazareth Hospital in Kiambu on the outskirts of Nairobi. In mid-1983, Sister Leonella started her advanced studies in nursing and in 1985 became the principal tutor at the school of nursing attached to Nkubu Hospital, Meru, Kenya.