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A year ago Livatino on the altars, the first blessed magistrate

2022-05-05T15:58:32.234Z


Killed by the mafia, he was also a crime "in hatred of the faith" (ANSA) Rigor and consistency on the one hand, profound humanity on the other: this was the service rendered to the judiciary by Rosario Livatino, "the boy judge" killed by the mafia on 21 September 1990, the first blessed magistrate in the history of the Catholic Church, proclaimed one year as such. ago, on May 9, 2021, after the Vatican authorities judged that crime also committed "in hatred of the fait


Rigor and consistency on the one hand, profound humanity on the other: this was the service rendered to the judiciary by Rosario Livatino, "the boy judge" killed by the mafia on 21 September 1990, the first blessed magistrate in the history of the Catholic Church, proclaimed one year as such. ago, on May 9, 2021, after the Vatican authorities judged that crime also committed "in hatred of the faith" practiced by Livatino himself.

The date of beatification was not accidental: in 1993, precisely on May 9, John Paul the Second, in the Valley of the Temples, addressed his peremptory invitation to the mafia: "Repent! Once the judgment of God will come!".


    In the run-up to the first anniversary of the magistrate's beatification, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, praised "the


    Other initiatives are planned in the next few days: among these one in Tuscany, in a symbolic place - the estate of Suvignano, in the Sienese area, seized from the mafia - where a conference on the theme "Nobody will come to ask us how much we were believers, but credible ", a phrase uttered by Livatino himself who wondered about what will happen" when we die ".


    When Livatino, who was 38 years old, was killed by the mafia, almost nobody knew him, with the exception of his torturers: he worked at the Court of Agrigento and spent his days in dusty files, dealing mainly with seizures and confiscations of assets stolen from the mafia.

This earned him his death sentence decreed by the men of the Stidda, a mafia organization from Agrigento, four of whom were later sentenced to life imprisonment.

They waited for him along the state road that every morning he drove from his house in Canicattì - which the Sicilian Region decided to acquire four months ago - to the court of Agrigento.

He had refused the escort: he begged the murderous "picciotti" to save his life, in response he received the coup de grace in the face.


    Due to the coherence between his faith and his commitment to work - the mafia members scornfully defined him "holy man" precisely because of his frequentation of the Church - the cause was initiated to raise him to the altars.

In the decree on martyrdom it is written that Livatino was considered unapproachable by his persecutors, "irreducible to attempts at corruption precisely because of his being a practicing Catholic. towards him it was unequivocally attributable to the odium fidei (hatred of the faith) ", to the point that, initially, the principals had planned the ambush" in front of the church where the magistrate made a daily visit to the Blessed Sacrament ".


    Di Livatino also remains a highly topical mark of civil commitment regarding, for example, the relationship between magistrates and politics.

Speaking in 1984 at a conference on the role of the judge, he said: "It would be highly appropriate for judges to renounce to participate in electoral competitions as a candidate or, if they believe that the seat in Parliament far exceeds the prestige, power and importance of the office of the judge, made an irrevocable choice, burning all the vessels behind them, with the definitive resignation from the judicial order ".


    After Livatino's murder, it took investigators months to decode the acronym "STD", which was reported on the magistrate's notes, documents and notebooks and initially mistaken for a secret code.

In the end it was discovered that it was Livatino's constant reliance on God: the three letters stood for "Sub Tutela Dei" (under the protection of the Lord "), the inspiring principle of his life and a sign of a profound spirituality. 


Source: ansa

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