Overview
- The Catholic Church marks Santa Rita’s feast on May 22 with special prayers and visits to her basilica in Cascia, reinforcing her central role in popular devotion.
- Born Margherita Lotti in Roccaporena in 1381, tradition holds she endured an abusive marriage, lost her husband and sons, and then entered the Augustinian convent in Cascia to live a life of prayer and charity.
- Devotional accounts record that in 1428 Rita bore a forehead wound likened to a thorn of Christ’s crown and that she died in 1457; Pope Leo XIII canonized her in 1900 and her body remains in the basilica at Cascia.
- Her reputation as the patroness of 'impossible causes' and the desperate draws pilgrims and prayers from across the Catholic world seeking comfort or miraculous help.
- Contemporary coverage republishes a traditional prayer to Santa Rita and frames the feast as a time for petition, reconciliation, and renewed pilgrimage that sustains local religious life and the basilica’s role as a place of hope.