Christopher Howse’s notebook

On The News Quiz, they were all puzzled by the name of troublesome Storm Goretti. Someone thought it a good choice of name as you could not tell whether it was male or female.

As we all know, the name came from Maria Goretti, who was martyred in 1902, aged 11, and canonised in 1950. So many came to the event it was held in St Peter’s Square instead of inside, the first time that had happened, as far as I know.

The Gorettis were a poor family and were growing poorer when the father died. They lived in a hulking old stone building in Lazio shared with another family, one of whom, Alessandro, aged 20, had been harassing Maria for some time when one day, everyone being out working on the farm, he demanded sex.

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