VATICAN CITY – Italian judge Rosario Livatino, who was eliminated by the Mafia in Sicily in 1990, was beatified on Sunday, the last phase prior to possible sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.
Livatino was assassinated by a Mafia struck team, which contended his automobile as he was driving along a Sicilian highway. Despite the threats, he had actually declined an armed escort. He attempted to leave his assailants, however was captured and eliminated in a field.
Known as the “boy judge” due to the fact that he looked more youthful than his 37 years, Livatino had actually led lots of examinations into the mob at a time when Sicilian clans were associated with a full-blown war.
He was beatified at a service in Agrigento cathedral in Sicily, where a glass box including his bloodstained t-shirt was placed on display screen as an antique. Speaking to pilgrims in the Vatican City, Pope Francis applauded the young magistrate.
“In his service to the community as an upstanding judge, who never allowed himself to become corrupt, he strived to judge not to condemn but to rehabilitate,” Francis stated.
“May his example be for everyone, especially for judges, an incentive to be loyal defenders of lawfulness and freedom.”
Three years after his death, Pope John Paul gone to Sicily and hailed Livatino as a “martyr of justice.”
Pope Francis put him on the roadway to possible sainthood in December, authorizing a decree of martyrdom which indicated there was no requirement for a wonder to be credited to Livatino’s intercession with God for him to be beatified.
A wonder would need to be credited to Livatino in order for him to be stated a saint.
Roman Catholic Church teaches that just God carries out wonders, however that saints who are thought to be with God in paradise intercede on behalf of individuals who hope to them. A wonder is generally the clinically mysterious recovery of an individual.
