Abbess Dies in Quake
The Adnkronos news agency has reported that Sister Gemma Antonucci, abbess of the Poor Clare nuns of the convent of Santa Chiara of Paganica, died in today’s earthquake in Italy.
According to the Adnkronos report, rescuers were trying to remove debris from another nun thought to be trapped in the collapsed building.
Adnkronos also reported as follows:
According to SIR, the news agency of the Italian bishops, Don Dionisio Umberto Rodriguez Cuartas, pastor of the 5,000 inhabitants of Paganica and director of Caritas L’Aquila, said: ‘‘There are at least three deaths in the parish, but I fear the number will rise because ‘the old’ part of the town has completely collapsed. It wasn’t possible to enter the great church and I do not know what happened, but the other five churches were all damaged. The roof of the convent of Poor Clares collapsed and we’re not able to remove another sister from the rubble.’‘
Today’s Italian earthquake, which is known to have claimed at least 92 lives, was particularly damaging because it took place at night when most people were asleep at home.
Edward Pentin Edward Pentin is the Register’s Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst. He began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN's National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates (Sophia Institute Press, 2020) and The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (Ignatius Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @edwardpentin.
