Judge Rosario Livatino will be blessed

Gabriella Ceraso and Benedetta Capelli – Vatican City

Receiving in audience on December 21 Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery to promulgate the decrees relating to a new neighboring blessed and 7 new Venerable Servants of God with the recognition of his heroic virtues.

“An example not only for the magistrates, but for all those who work in the field of law: for the coherence between their faith and their commitment to work and for the timeliness of their reflections.” So Pope Francis just a year ago spoke of the judge Rosario Livatino – born on October 3, 1952 in Canicattì and murdered by the mafia for hatred of the faith, on September 21, 1990. Today it is the same Pontiff who, with the recognition of martyrdom, leads this young Sicilian magistrate to the honor of the altars as the next new blessed. . A life dedicated to law studies and a deep knowledge of the mafia phenomenon with a great ability to find links and recreate plots, as well as to sign important sentences that would have led him to the sights of Cosa Nostra. Commitment and faith, in a man always attentive to the person and to the dimension of redemption and crime, capable therefore of condemning but also of understanding, giving, as he himself wrote, “a soul to the law.”

In the decree signed by the Pope there are also the figures of 7 Servants of God who are made Venerable with the recognition of their heroic virtues: they come from Spain, Italy and Poland.

The Spanish are Vasco de Quiroga – Bishop of Michoacán, born around 1470 in Madrigal de las Altas Torres and died in Mexico in Pátzcuaro on March 14, 1565 – and with him, the diocesan priest Antonio Vincenzo González Suárez, born on April 5 of 1817 in Agüimes he died in Las Palmas also in Spain on June 22, 1851.

Basque of Quiroga He studied law and theology, attended both the universities of Salamanca and Valladolid, and then began to work in the judiciary of Valladolid where, in 1528, he was appointed a member of the Royal Chancellery. In 1530 he was appointed by King Carlos I of Spain. judge of the Second Hearing of Mexico with the task of verifying and removing, among other things, the abuses that had been committed against the indigenous people, achieving a delicate task of social pacification. During this period, Vasco de Quiroga founded two hospitals on his own, always paying great attention to the indigenous world to which he dedicated time and commitment. Then the appointment of Pope Paul III as the first bishop of Michoacán, an opportunity to develop an articulated pastoral plan in which he was able to establish seminaries, build a cathedral but also create structures of closeness and spiritual and material care for the indigenous people.

Spanish Canarian diocesan priest Antonio Vincenzo Gonzalez SuarezA tireless man of great intellectual stature, he developed many tasks in the mid-nineteenth century, always with a spirit of service. Parish priest of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Las Palmas de GC, procurator of the Diocese of the Canary Islands, secretary, vice-rector and professor of fundamental theology in the diocesan seminary, he is remembered above all for his attention to the parishioners, his generosity towards those most in need and to those who came to him for help. A great speaker, an example of charity and obedience. He distinguished himself in his priesthood for his love for the poor and the sick, giving away what was necessary to serve others. As a good shepherd he had found strength in his special love for the Eucharist and in filial devotion to Mary, professing a special veneration for Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of Sorrows in the Vegueta district of the capital. His life and death are intertwined with two tragic events in the history of his land: a terrible famine and the subsequent cholera epidemic that saw him in the front row helping the poor and sick, until he himself fell ill, dying at the age of 34 years.

Among the Italians and the new Venerable Servants of God, Antonio Seghezzi, diocesan priest, pastor capable of following his children, standing by their side even in difficult decisions, cultivating a dialogue made of attention and care, spiritually accompanying young people with letters and long talks. Don Antonio Seghezzi was above all a priest who loved his flock, made up of young people who were passionate about the freshness of the Gospel. “The most beautiful Catholic action I will do … will be to give myself everything,” wrote Don Antonio when he was diocesan assistant for Catholic Action, a task entrusted to him by the Bishop of Bergamo Adriano Bernareggi.

Born in Premolo, in the Bergamo area, on August 26, 1906, he entered the seminary at the age of eleven and became a priest in 1929. First teacher and later military chaplain in Eritrea, in 1935 he joined Catholic Action where His spiritual commitment and priestly generosity grew. His life, made of evangelical radicalism, speaks for him. A path that impacts with the violence of Nazi-fascism, after the armistice of September 8, 1943, chose “the path of the mountains” to stay with the many boys who had repaired there. “He did not incite active resistance – explained Don Mario Benigni, his fellow prisoner in Germany – but rather passive resistance”. Meanwhile, the Nazi-fascists threaten retaliation against the clergy and Catholic Action for this, on the advice of his bishop, he surrenders spontaneously and allows himself to be arrested on November 4, 1943. Immediately beaten and tortured, tried and sentenced to five years From forced labor in Germany, later discounted to three, he is deported and forced into forced labor in a munitions factory in Löpsingen. On April 23, 1945, now ill, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. His health worsened and on May 21, 1945, with the camp already cleared, and on the eve of his return to Italy, Don Antonio died. His remains are only found in 1952 and then they are transferred to Italy, since 2006 they rest in the parish church of Premolo, his native land.

The heroic virtues of the Servant of God are also recognized by the Decree Bernardino Piccinelli, in the century: Dino, of the Order of the Servants of Mary, titular bishop of Gaudiaba and Auxiliary of Ancona, born on January 24, 1905 in Madonna dei Fornelli, a village of San Benedetto Val di Sambro and died in Ancona on October 1, 1984. A “face full of light, joy, simplicity,” a humble pastor capable of reading people’s hearts. In love with the Virgin whom he called with the sweet name of Mother, he always entrusted himself to her for important cases and even to his tears he begged her for the good of souls. He left in the hearts of the people a deep nostalgia, rooted in the belief that he was lived as a saint, even as a great saint, as Father Tito M. Sartori, Postulator of his Order, writes.

Another new Italian priest is a Venerable Servant of God Bernardo antonini He was born on October 20, 1932 in Cimego and died in Karaganda in Kazakhstan on March 27, 2002. A life lit by the story of Saint Paul, by that longing to bring the truth of the Gospel to the world. It is the life of Don Bernardo Antonini, born in Cimego, in the province of Trento on October 20, 1932. Totally incardinated in the life of the diocese of Verona, where he moved with his family, his history is marked by study. After becoming a priest in 1955, in 1962 he graduated in modern foreign languages ​​and literature, two years later he obtained a degree in Dogmatics and in 1975 a degree in Sacred Scripture. Until he was 60 years old, his path was that of teaching and also that of journalism, then he entered the Institute “Jesús Sacerdote”, founded by Don Alberione, and at that moment he fell in love with Saint Paul. In 1989 he had the opportunity to temporarily go to Moscow for a course of study, in 1991 he made himself available to Monsignor Kondrusiewicz, who was about to be sent from Belarus as bishop to Moscow.

It is the period of Gorbachev’s “perestroika” with the opening of Russia to the world. Don Bernardo, who knows 10 languages, starting from Verona as a “fidei donum” priest, sows seeds in Moscow in an arid land of faith. In 1993 he manages to open the first seminary, 13 young people are preparing for the priesthood. In 1999, three of them were ordained: they are the first priests after 81 years of absolute emptiness in the local clergy. Eager to reach the poorest churches, Don Bernardo moved to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where, however, on the night of March 27, 2002, he put an end to his earthly life.

There is also the name of a woman among the new Venerable Servants of God, it is Staltari Rose, a professed religious of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Most Holy Co-redemptrix, born on May 3, 1951 in Antonimina in Calabria and died in Palermo on January 4, 1974. In just 23 years of life, Rosa Staltari knows deep love of Jesus for whom he dedicates himself completely. Born in Calabria, without a mother, she is welcomed in a boarding school where she attends schools until she obtains a professional license. She moved to Reggio Calabria at the “Maria Mater Divinae Gratiae” Institute of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Most Holy Co-redemptrix, obtained a business secretary diploma and a nursery school diploma. The choice to consecrate herself in 1973, a year later in Palermo, where she had been sent to teach the children, died suddenly. There is an intense mysticism in it, attested by many writings:

“I am more and more convinced that it is the Virgin herself who gives me Jesus and that She is the compass that marks the Love between Him and me and that without her all attempts are useless. Jesus, have mercy on me because I don’t know how to give you anything, but I want to give you everything. “Words that summarize his whole life.”

Polacco, on the other hand, is the new Venerable Servant of God Ignazio Stuchlý, professed priest of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales. Born on December 14, 1869 in Bolesławin, into a very religious family in Upper Silesia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ignazio Stuchlý, at the age of 22, became a Salesian priest. His path is marked by various stages, in 1910 he was sent to Ljubljana where he also took care of the construction of the Church of Mary Help of Christians, which had been interrupted by financial difficulties and which, thanks to him, is completed. In 1925 his superiors sent him to Perosa Argentina, in the province of Turin, to select candidates for Salesian religious life for the Czech Republic, he was the founder and at the same time the pioneer of the Salesian presence in Bohemia and Moravia. About 200 vocations flourished. With the Nazis and World War II came terrible years with property seized and many brothers sent to forced labor. After the war, at this point in the 1970s, he was entrusted with the difficult management of the postwar period. With the advent of communism the Salesian works were requisitioned, the priests enlisted or dispersed. Don Stuchlý suddenly saw the work to which he had devoted his life destroyed. He spent the last years in the Zlín nursing home, then in Lukov, always supervised by the regime and isolated from his religious family. He died peacefully on the night of January 17, 1953.