It was September 21, 1990 when Rosary Angelo Livatino, who went down in history as the “child judge”, was killed by four Stidda killers in order to interrupt his research on the seizures and confiscations of assets stolen from the mafia. The crime, which was also committed “in hatred of the faith” of the magistrate, a practicing Catholic, led the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to start a beatification process made official, with the authorization of Pope Francis, on December 22 last year and effective from today, May 9, 2021, through a ceremony in the Cathedral of his Agrigento.
Rosario Livatino today would be 69 years old, at the time, the public did not know who he was, but the boss Calogero Di Caro, who lived a few steps from his home in Viale Regina Margherita, in the center of Canicattì, not only knew him well, but also knew that he represented a danger to his criminal circles.
Canicattì, hometown of #RosarioLivatino tightens in memory of the martyr magistrate of justice who will be beatified today. At the microphone of @lafrogh sent #Gr1 the memory of Giuseppe Palilla, childhood friend of #Livatino: “In his hand he had the penal code and the Gospel” pic.twitter.com/kjr3QaE4jf
– Rai Radio1 (@ Radio1Rai) May 9, 2021
Despite the young age, Livatino was engaged in delicate anti-mafia investigations which had led him, at the beginning of the eighties, to be part of the Prosecutor of Agrigento and, subsequently, to agree to be part of a group of magistrates led by the prosecutor Elio Spallitta to investigate the Agrigento clans. Investigations that led Livatino to collaborate, together with the Gip Fabio Salamone, with Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, leaving in those who knew him the memory of a very shy and reserved person, concentrated on work and prayer which he often devoted himself to in the nearby church of San Giuseppe. The very close relationship between Livatino and religion was also underlined by an acronym, “STD”, reported on many of his notes, documents and notebooks and initially mistaken for a secret code. In fact, the three letters stood for “Sub Tutela Dei”, “Under the protection of the Lord”, a complete entrusting of the mortal soul to God who among the mafia had earned him the nickname of “holy man”.
A judge, he said, must offer the image of a man capable of condemning, but also of understanding; always be free and independent: Rosario Livatino told by Lirio Abbate, here https://t.co/7zdPFuP74q pic.twitter.com/ViY12i5VVE
– Rai Radio3 (@ Radio3tweet) May 9, 2021
At a conference on the role of the judge in 1984, Livatino 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 office of the judge, made an irrevocable choice, burning all the vessels behind them, with the definitive resignation from the judicial order ». On September 21, 1990, Livatino was on his way to the courthouse in a Ford Fiesta when he was joined by the Stidda killers. He was anything but a bigoted man: “When we die, no one will ask us how much we have been believers, but credible”, he once said, reinforcing, also because of the murder “in hatred of the faith”, the intention of the authorities Vatican to make him Blessed 31 years later. A date not chosen at random, since it is dated May 9, 1993 the anathema that Pope Wojtyla launched against the mafia in Agrigento, in the Valley of the Temples: “Repent – he said – one day God’s judgment will come”.
“We young people want to be like Falcone and Borsellino”
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