Blood-stained Shirt of Beatified Judge Killed by Mafia Displayed in Rome

The relic, which arrived in Rome on Jan. 13, has been solemnly exposed for veneration in several Catholic parishes and universities, as well as Italy’s Parliament, Supreme Court building, Superior Council of the Judiciary, the Ministry of Grace and Justice, and the Municipality of Rome.

On Jan. 18–19 the shirt was at a Catholic church inside the headquarters of the Italian financial police, where Commanding General Andrea De Gennaro and Archbishop Santo Marcianò, head of the Military Ordinariate for Italy, participated in a conference on “Livatino, pilgrim of justice and faith.”

On Friday, the Church of San Salvatore in Lauro welcomed the relic for a few hours with a ceremony and Mass celebrated by Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura.

Cardinal Dominique Mamberti presides at a ceremony and Mass at the Church of San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, where a relic of Blessed Rosario Livatino was displayed Jan. 20, 2023. Daniel Ibañez/CNA

The final stop in the relic’s journey will be Jan. 21 at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and of the Martyrs, a 15th-century church built inside the ruined frigidarium of the Roman Baths of Diocletian.

More in Africa

Prolonged Legal Proceedings Compounding Trauma of Children Seized from Nigerian Orphanage: Christian Human Rights Group

Read the article

Blessed Rosario Livatino worked as a prosecutor in Sicily dealing with the criminal activity of the Mafia throughout the 1980s. He confronted what Italians later called the “Tangentopoli,” the corrupt system of Mafia bribes and kickbacks given for public works contracts.

At the age of 37, he served as a judge at the Court of Agrigento, where he always treated the accused with kindness.

Cardinal Dominique Mamberti presides at a ceremony and Mass at the Church of San Salvatore in Lauro, Rome, where a relic of Blessed Rosario Livatino was displayed Jan. 20, 2023. Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Livatino was also known to have a strong devotion to and knowledge of Scripture. After his death, a Bible full of notations was found in his office desk, where he always kept a crucifix.

The pilgrimage of Livatino’s relic in Rome happened to coincide with the arrest of one of Italy’s most wanted mafiosi, Matteo Messina Denaro, on Jan. 16.

Messina Denaro, a notorious boss connected to the Sicilian Mafia group Cosa Nostra, was arrested in Palermo after nearly three decades in hiding.

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.