Justice
“Mr Livatino is a role model not just for magistrates, but for all those who work in the field of law: for the consistency of his faith and his commitment to work, and for the relevance of his reflections”. Pope Francis said this today as he received in audience the members of the “Rosario Livatino” Studies Centre, on the occasion of the National Conference on the theme “Crisis of the Judiciary. Paths to recover justice”. “On 9 May 1993 – Pope Francis recalled -, my Predecessor St John Paul II made a historic, bold call to conversion in his address to ‘Mafia members’ at the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, having just met with the parents of a magistrate, Rosario Livatino Angelo, who was killed on his way to Court on 21 September 1990, at the age of 38. On that occasion, the Pope called him a martyr of justice and indirectly of the faith”. Mr Livatino – whose diocesan phase of the beatification process is now completed – “continues to be an example, first of all for those who carry out the demanding and challenging work of a judge”, the Pope said: “When Rosario was killed, almost no one knew him. He was working in a court on the outskirts: he was dealing with kidnappings and the confiscation of assets illegally obtained by the Mafia. He was working with integrity, safeguarding the rights of the accused, with great professionalism and concrete results: for this reason, the Mafia decided to kill him”.
