A martyred Catholic judge will be beatified in May
Rosario Livatino, a Sicilian judge and magistrate, was killed by the mafia in 1990. This year, he will be beatified on the Italian island on Sunday, the 9th of May.
Cardinal Francesco Montenegro, archbishop of Agrigento, Sicily, announced the date of his beatification on Friday, together with his coadjutor, Archbishop Alessandro Damiano.
Livatino’s beatification Mass will take place in the Cathedral Basilica of Agrigento, where the martyr’s mortal remains will be translated from his hometown of Canicattì, which is about twenty miles to the northeast.
The thirty-seven-year-old magistrate was killed by the mafia on the 21st of September, in 1990, because he worked to combat organized crime in Sicily.
He was driving unescorted towards the Agrigento courthouse when another car hit him, sending him off the road. He ran from the crashed vehicle into a field, but was shot in the back and then killed with more gunshots.
On the 22nd of December, 2020, Pope Francis declared him a martyr, killed in hatred of the faith. The date of his beatification falls on the 28th anniversary of St. Pope John Paul II’s visit to Agrigento in May 1993.
Source, photo: CNA
