Pope Francis to Judges: Justice Recognizes "human dignity as sacred and inviolable"

“Thus allegorically expressing the equality, fair proportion, impartiality required in the exercise of justice,” he said.

“According to the Bible,” he added, “it is also necessary, in addition, to administer [justice] with mercy.”

“But no political reform of justice can change the life of those who administer it, if one does not first choose, in front of one’s conscience, ‘for whom,’ ‘how’ and ‘why’ to do justice,” the pope continued. “It is a decision of one’s conscience. This is what St. Catherine of Siena taught when she said that in order to reform, one must first reform oneself.”

Pope Francis also pointed to the example of Bl. Rosario Livatino, a Catholic judge who was brutally killed by the mafia in Sicily in 1990.

Quoting Livatino, Pope Francis said: “When we die, no one will come and ask us how much we were believers, but believable.”

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“Livatino,” he noted, “was murdered at the age of 38, leaving us the strength of his credible testimony, but also the clarity of an idea of a judiciary to which to strive.”

“May Bl. Rosario Livatino, the first magistrate beatified in the history of the Church, be of help and comfort to you,” he said.

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.