October 29th is the liturgical memorial of Blessed Rosario Angelo Livatino who was assassinated by the Sicilian mafia group Stidda on September 21, 1990.
His name has become naturally synonymous with the fight against the Mafia. In just 38 years of life, thanks to his incredible dedication for justice and truth, Blessed Rosario Angelo managed to inspire many judges to fight organized crime. Who can ever forget that most powerful and prophetic appeal which Pope St John Paul II made right at the end of Holy Mass on May 9, 1993, in that famous archaeological site known as the Valley of Temples in Agrigento:
God once said: do not kill! Man cannot, any man, any group. . .the mafia, cannot change and trample on this most sacred law of God! . . . .This people, Sicilian people, attached to life, people who love life, who give life, cannot always live under the pressure of a contradictory civilization, civilization of death!. . . .In the name of this crucified and risen Christ, of Christ who is life, way, truth and life. I say it to those responsible: Convert! One day, the judgment of God will come!
On January 21, 2023, the city of Rome, in the Church of San Salvatore in Lauro, with much emotion, welcomed pilgrims in honor of the judge Rosario Angelo Livatino, a martyr of the fight against the Mafia. That event brought a particular relic, the blood-soaked shirt the judge was wearing the day of his assassination. According to Domenico Airoma, from the Prosecuters’ Office of Avellino, in Italy, Livantino was born in the heart of Sicily in the Province of Agrigento, at Canicatti. For Airoma, this geographical reference is not at all secondary. As we must understand when and how Livatino worked, particularly within a context characterised by the Mafia’s Code of Silence, omerta. Those fighting against the Mafia did not have the possibility of using the political instruments that are available today. What’s more, Rosario was living in an apartment directly below the head of the local Mafia.
Rosario Levatino was the first judge in the history of the Catholic Church who was beatified. In fact his beatification took place on May 9, 2021 at the Cathedral of Agrigento in Sicily. In that fully packed Cathedral Cardinal Marcello Semeraro said: Livatino is a witness of the justice of the Kingdom of God. While Livatino is a hero of the State and of the law, he is also a martyr of Christ.
Let us not forget that when Livatino was assassinated few knew about this youthful, talented and exemplary magistrate, who worked in Italy’s peripheries of the time. His indefatigable labours led to fruitful results, such as the seizure and confiscation of illicit property attained by the Sicilian mafia. He performed his job without infringing on the rights of the accused. Rosario Livatino’s commitment to the Catholic Faith is really impressive.
As he was addressing the members of the “Rosario Livatino” Study Center on Friday 29 October 2019, Pope Francis reflected on the intimate relationship Faith, Law and Charity by quoting verbatim what Blessed Rosario Livatino had to say on the subject:
I identify closely with another reflection of Rosario Livatino, when he states: “To decide is to choose […]; and to choose is one of the most difficult things that man is called to do. And it is precisely in this choice to decide, to decide to order, that the believing magistrate can find a relationship with God. A direct relationship, because doing justice is self-realization, it is prayer, it is self-dedication to God. An indirect relationship, through love for the person judged.[…] And such a task will be all the lighter the more the magistrate will humbly be aware of his own weaknesses, the more he will present himself each time to society willing and inclined to understand the man in front of him and to judge him without the attitude of a superman, but rather with constructive contrition”.
Today, Blessed Rosario Livatino’s legacy lives on thanks to the sterling work of a centre in the Italian peninsula which is dedicated to important issues of life, the family, and religious freedom. In fact, the Rosario Livatino Study Center, which was founded in 2015, is made up of lawyers, judges, magistrates, and university professors inspired by the life and work of the young Catholic judge Rosario Livatino who often spoke about the meeting between the law and faith.
Presently, Mauro Ronco, a former professor of criminal law at the University of Padua, is the president of the Livatino Study Center. He said: The Rosario Livatino Study Center was established … expressly recalling the example of coherence between faith, ethics and law that the Sicilian magistrate gave to the point of sacrificing his life. The purpose of the study center is the study, development and promotion of academic and legal studies concerning the right to life from conception to natural death and the family founded between one man and one woman within the framework of natural law.
The Rosario Livatino Study center organizes periodic workshops on topics such as euthanasia, conscientious objection, and constitutional reform. As we have just noticed, Pope Francis already met with the members of the Rosario Livatino Study Center at the Vatican in November 2019. In that famous speech to the members of the center, Pope Francis said that Livatino continues to be an example, above all for those who carry out the demanding and complicated judiciary work … and for all those who work in the field of law.
The Pope continued: In a conference, referring to the question of euthanasia, and taking up the concerns that a lay parliamentarian of the time had about the introduction of an alleged right to euthanasia, [Livatino] made this observation: ‘If the believer’s opposition to this law is based on the conviction that human life […] is a divine gift that man is not allowed to suffocate or interrupt, equally motivated is the opposition of the non-believer based on the conviction that life is protected by natural law, that no right positive can violate or contradict since it belongs to the sphere of ‘unavailable’ goods’
In that speech, Pope Francis recalled that after Livatino’s death, an annotation was found frequently written in the margins of his notes: “STD.” He said that it was soon discovered that the acronym attested to an act of total entrustment that Livatino often made to God’s will. The letters stood for “Sub Guardia Dei,” meaning “Under the gaze of God.” He said: Rosario Livatino left us all a shining example of how faith can be fully expressed in the service of the civil community and its laws; and how obedience to the Church can be combined with obedience to the State, in particular with the delicate and important ministry of enforcing and applying the law.
Mauro Ronco suggested that young lawyers seeking wisdom from Livatino study his speeches and writings, precisely a speech from 1986 in which the lawyer wrote about how the purpose of the magistrate is to practice justice, not as an objective closed in on itself, but as a way to the greater purpose of love for God and all humanity, especially that which navigates in the shadows of crime, also capable of recovering from a life that is once again full and happy only if it escapes the poison of selfishness.
Holy and merciful Father, we thank you for the credible testimony of the Blessed Rosario Angelo Livatino, magistrate and martyr for the faith. Placing himself “sub tutela Dei” and drawing inspiration every day from the Gospel, he offered his life, giving us a shining example of lay holiness.
Fully conformed to Christ your Son, like a grain of wheat that falls to the ground who dies to bear fruit he experienced the bliss of those persecuted for justice. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, with daily commitment, he offered the worship you appreciated through love for justice and charity for the brothers.
Through his intercession we ask you to know how to counter “structures of sin” and the various mafia mentalities which disfigure man and threaten human life, to experience the bliss of justice and peace. Amen.