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A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged. Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish. She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives. Her youngest son Zhang Qilin - now aged just seven - was found in a...

Maria was born October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, Italy, near Ancona to Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. In 1896, her father, a farmer, moved the family to Ferriere di Conco, near Anzio. Soon afterward, he died, and the family was forced to move to the Serenelli farm to survive. At age 12, Maria was stabbed to death on July 6, 1902 by Alexander Serenelli, the son of her father’s partner, while resisting his attempt to rape her. She was canonized in 1950 by Pius XII. Her murderer, through her intercession, converted and became a penitent Franciscan brother. Comments of Prof....