Blessed Boy Judge

Face of an angel? Rosarion Livtino, Boy Judge, killed far too young, for being a lawyer. (1952-1990)

I am always on the hunt for lawyers who caught the eye of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, either canon lawyers or secular lawyers.   So far, Dr. Google has shown me that out of the thousands of people who have been investigated by that Congregation, approximately thirty-five were lawyers.

Few of these made it into heaven because of their legal career; being a lawyer was incidental to their stellar lives.   There is one, glorious and recent exception.  Not only is he Beatified for his work as a lawyer, but he was proclaimed a martyr as well.

Rosario Livatino was called the “Boy Judge” because of his youthful looks.   He was killed in 1990 in his home, Sicily, while driving from his parent’s farmhouse to the courthouse to work.  Ten men stood trial and were convicted of the murder. They were members of La Stidda, categorized in Sicily as a mafia criminal group.  Judge Livatino was thirty-seven years old.   Ls Stidda never imagined the public uproar that would follow and in their convictions.

Two things stand out to me in my reading about this Judge.  The first is that martyrdom issue.  Pope Francis declared the Boy Judge a “martyr for the faith”.   Livatino was mocked and hated by La Stidda members because he was a regular Church attendee and a fervent believer in his faith.  He was known for his strong faith and commitment to justice.  He rooted out corruption in his jurisdiction in Sicily and caused La Stidda huge financial losses, confiscation of property and the arrests of senior members.  That, along with his faith life, made him a marked man.     

The second is that he was offered bodyguard protection repeatedly, but refused.  Not because he was especially brave, but because the gangs were known to kill everyone around their target and leave no witnesses.  Judge Livatino did not want to cause the loss of a husband or father to a family.  When the assassins rammed his Ford Fiesta on the way to Court, he tried to escape alone, on foot across the fields. But the four killers caught him and shot him numerous times, until he lay dead. 

For a lawyer, to know this guy, is to love him.  As beatified, Blessed Rosario Livatino,  was young, contemporary, seriously Catholic and a lawyer.  His Beatification directly involved his profession as a lawyer and that is worth admiring.  We might think to seek his intercession to be better in our profession.