Martyr of justice – Rosario Livatino Maria Di Lorenzo [traslated by Teresa Chiuchiolo] |
Martyr of justice - A young person, a judge, a Christian - From Rosario Livatino' s works
The word of the Bishop of Agrigento
Text taken from the book of Maria Di Lorenzo: Rosario Livatino, martire della giustizia, Paoline Editions, 2000.
Martyr of justice
Rosario Livatino: a young man, a judge, a christian. Not a saint at all costs, nor superhero, but a man like thousand others. Enchanted of life, justice, and truth. Hero by chance in the land of lemons, carts, shotguns and mafia trinitrotoluene,
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| Rosario Livatino (1952-1990) |
One of the so-called "baby judges- called to face "cosa nostra". Italy only came to know him from the pages of the newspapers on the day after his death, which occurred on 21st September 1990, while he was droving along highway 640 in order to go to work at the Courthouse of Agrigento. After the barbarian murder, his figure has begun to distinguish itself in the imaginary of he who lives in today’s Italy but, dreams of living in a different one.
A servant of the State "A martyr of the justice and, also indirectly, of faith...", as Giovanni Paul II said of him in May of 1993 in Agrigento.
A young person, a judge, a Christian
Every mornings from Canicattì he reached the Courthouse, in Agrigento,covering only a few kilometres by car. Before entering his office, the daily visit to the church of S. Joseph,close to the Hall of Justice, where he used to stop to pray.
Well remembered by Mons. Giuseppe Di Marco, diocesano vicario, who then was parish priest, many times had wondered to him-self who was that young person, so quiet, concentrated in his prayers.
"I did not know who he was, 1 only knew that he was a magistrate... he remained for while, and then he left in silence. Just after the tragedy, when I saw his photo on the newspaper, I understood who he was".
The hardest cases of his job as judge, Rosary resolved there, at the feet of the altar, the morning before entering the Courtroom. There Rosario Rosario invoked the assistance of the Holy Ghost to be able to decide with fair judgment, in order to choose what was better to do"and to choose is one of the most difficult things that man is called on to do...", he had written.
At the Court of Agrigento there was always lots to do, and he never drew back. He remained in the office even when there was not anybody else there. Scrupulous, once on the mid-August Day holiday he did not hesitate to show up in the courthouse just to sign a release order, in so doing he made sure that the defendant was not left even an hour more than necessary in prison he was a tireless worker, without any craving for self-promotions, without ostentation. on the contrary, he avoided with every means notoriety
Once, in occasion of a rather lively hearing, with many reporters and photographers, he hid him-self behind a policeman to avoid being immortalized ("I am in court to work ... ", he defended him-self).
His cousin Alessandro Livatino: "Rosario was shy not only of honours but also of festivities, noisy and confusing reunions. He had a mission and a missionary must have one single aim, to reach a single goal. Methodical and untiring worker, he left every morning from the modest parental home with a normal small car (while he could have allowed himself, because of his social rank and the function that he exercised, a lot more!), he worked with fervour, attention and clearness on judicial files: papers that he often brought home, to re-study them until late evening. and at night as well."
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His deep sense of duty put to the service of justice make him a sort of missionary: the "missionary" of law.
The early morning prayer, the visit to Jesus in the church along side the Hall of Justice, the untiring work at the Court of Agrigento until late in evening, the visit to someone needy. Rosario was like that.
A face with sweet features, with a barely faintly smile, black hair that he parted on the side. Dark and deep eyes; the firm, penetrating look. A tiny physique, like that of an adolescent. Simple and austere. Sober even in the way he dressed: jacket and necktie even at the height of summer, that it is not easy to tolerate thanks to the island’s heat.
"A member of the Church group “Azione Catolica”, constant to the Sunday Holy Communion, disciple of the crucifix mons. Ferraro summarized him in the sermon of his funeral rite, describing him with a few swift words as Man of law, and man of Christ."
Rosario knows saint' Augustin, the De vera religione: as for the African bishop, as for him there is not any contradiction between faith and reason (and God knows how much reason, logical reasoning, is preponderant in "the typically Cartesian" mentality of the Sicilian people), because both search for God.
Rosario has a deep acquaintance of the Sacred Scriptures, of the Conciliari Documents, of the Patristic. his Christianity is one that he nourishes through study, meditative readings, and reflection. He is a man of prayer, and the prayer is the heart of his days, it is the guide that informs his life and that, paraphrasing the great Spanish mystic saint Giovanni della Croce, drags it towards the centre that is God, and makes one go down deeper and deeper steps ... "
His mother Rosalia testifies: "In our house he has always breathed air of convinced religiousness, but above all, religion teachers, clergyman of highest doctrinal and spiritual level have influenced him.. For his personal formation they have been most important. Moreover, Rosario believed a lot in the force of prayer: his day began and concluded with the praise be to God (1).
Ida Abate, reflecting on the spiritual experience of her student, asserts: "When and how Rosario has passed from the reflection on the divine that resides in man and that, according to Seneca, is only interior, to the unconditioned faith in God of the Christian revelation, immanent in man and in history "more intimate of the most intimate part" (Saint Augustine, The confessions, III, 2: ndr), personal and at the same time transcendent, it not given for us to know" (2).
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| Rosario Livatino (indicated from the arrow) among his High School fellows, in 1971. |
However the passage has coincided with the discovery that we will all be indifferently, judged by love. Not on the wealth, and intelligence, on our the personal abilities or on other things, but only by love…The test is, and remains, la charity. And this is a concept on which, as we have seen, Rosario often returns: charity in judging, charity in truth,charity that is the sister of contrition, daughter of humbleness.
It is enough to go read the text of —Fede e diritto" once more: charity is all. It seems like listening the beautiful words of Saint Paul to the Corinthius again in the hymn to the agape, that "it does not lack respect, it does not search for its interests, it does not get angry, it does not hold in account the evil received , it does not enjoy injustices, but is pleased with the truth..." (1 Corinthius 13,5-6).
Livatino writes on "The magistrate, in the moment of deciding, must, above all, discharge every vanity and arrogance; he must feel all the weight of the power entrusted in his hands... be decided and inclined towards comprehending the man with whom he is confronted and judge him without a superior man attitude, but on the contrary with constructive contrition ".
A non believing philosopher like Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in his Diary that Christianity -is not a doctrine, it is not a theory of what has been and of what will be in the human spirit, but is the description of a true event that occurred in the life of a man". If this event is not incarnated, if it does not find it’s fulfilment in practical, every day life, if it does not become flesh and blood only remaining on the theoretical level, ideas and beautiful proclamations, what sense would it have?
"The laymen", is asserted in the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium, "are called by God to contribute, to the sanctification of the world through the exercise of their own function and under the guidance of the evangelic spirit and in this way to manifest Christ to others, mainly with the testimony of their life..." (n. 31).
Rosario wanted that in the room of the audiences there was always a crucifix, , as a sign of charity and integrity. Moreover he had even a crucifix on the wall over his desk, with a copy of the Gospel. The Gospel was all full of annotations, to show that he consulted it very often, at least as much as the judiciary codes, daily instruments of its job.
"From the satisfaction of himself as a "good catholic" who complies with his duties, reads a good newspaper, votes well etc, but that for the rest does what he likes, there is a long way ahead", said Edith Stein, "to arrive to a life that is is in the hands and comes from the hands of God, with the simplicity of the child and humility of the publican. But he who has covered one time that way, will not turn back anymore..." (3).
Many things have been known about Rosario only after his death, like for instance, about his charity, his love for the “last”, the poor ones. Every month, in secret, he would deliver some money to people that were in state of need, and he knew it; punctual and always in secret, he would also do the shopping for some of them, helping to them meet their first necessities.
When he died, the mortuary guard cried remembering all the times that he had been seen praying besides dead people of which he knew the criminal record very well, offenders that he had fought carrying out his job as assistant prosecutor at the tribunal of Agrigento; towards whom he had applied the law, but not for this were not his brothers in Christ in their misfortune.
"Jesus was bend down and with the finger he wrote on the ground. But scribes and Pharisees insisted in interrogating him. And then he stood up and answered them: "Who among you is without sin fling the first stone."" (John 8,6-7).
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| Rosario Livatino declared doctor in jurisprudence. Palermo 1975. |
From Rosario Livatino' s works
The highest symbol and the highest legal sign are the ten commandments, the Decalogue, in which the legislator, the "maker of the law—. is Jhwh, God of justice and love.
[…] Immense is the value of the Biblical law in the patrimony of human culture and above all that legal one : every legal message that is not bond to morals and necessities viewed in a historical perspective, finds in the Biblical law the trace of the premonitory mark.
To oppose concepts, truths, entities of faith and the law, can give at first impact the impression, the idea of an antinomy- a totally contrasting theoretical idea and absolutely incompatible, the first , being expression of the more intimate space of the human mind, with a more genuine and deep emotional impetus. the unconditioned and most total adhesion to the invisible and thus, to the irrational: the latter instead. is the fruit, most exquisite, of rationality, reflection, of the ice cold and impersonal technical elaboration: so, they give the idea of two aspects of human life completely independent and distinguished, and as such, destined to manifest and to evolve without any contact or mutual interference: strangers to each other…
Instead it is not like that |. | that the world of faith and the world of law must have shared and effective attention of each other is explained to us from two maximum testimonies: such is in fact the sense that we can give Paul VI' s words, when, in the beginning of the 1970’s,. in his speech held to the participants of the International Conference of canonical law, Promoted by the Catholic University of Milan(1973)he put fervently the accent on the opportunity of a "theology of law, that not only deepens, but improves the effort already begun by the Council", thus vivifying, also sub specie juris, thesentire cum Ecclesia.
Such is the sense that we find, ten years later, in other words, those of the current Giovanni Paolo II, when, in the Speech to the Catholics Jurists Union , given in 1982, he emphasized the necessity to value every force that has no other aim than "to fulfil Christian ethics in legal science, in the legislative, Judicial. administrative activity, in the whole public life..."
Life is all interwoven with ideals, with aims to pursuit, that, pure or impure, have a single scope: achieving wheel-being . Good for us, for our fellow man and from these ideals, from these aims, derives the good and bad sense of life. Examining all that surrounds us, through a logical and rationalistic process, we can reach a common origin, a being of indefinable nature that has given origin to all.
All the universe, for how immense it is, is identified in this being. God is like a support on which everything rotates. Everything comes and returns to God, God is the beginning and the end. Man in his sinful madness often thinks about the beginning, but very rarely thinks about the end...
It would be opportune that judges restrain from participating in electoral competitions as candidates or, in case they think that the seat in Parliament exceeds the prestige, power and importance of that of the judge's, they should make an irrevocable choice, leave no room for doubt, with the definitive resignation from the judicial order.
Justice is necessary, but not sufficient, and it can and must be exceeded by the law of charity that is the law of love, love towards thy neighbour and towards God, but towards thy neighbour in as God' s image, thus, as such not reducible to mere human solidarity.
The judge, must be independent, but he must appear independent as well . [...] it is important that he does not offer austere or strict person image of himself or of a person comprised of his role and his authority or of unattainable moral rigor, but he must give the image of a serious person, yes, of a balanced person, yes, of a responsible person as well. That of a comprehensive and human person could be added, able to convict, but also to understand.
Only if the judge fulfils in himself these conditions, the society can accept that he has on the others a great power, immense as the one he has. He who asks for justice must be able to believe that his reasons will be listened to with attention and seriousness. that the judge will be able to receive and to assume, as if they were his, and defend them in front of anyone.
Only if he offers this kind of personal availability, the citizen may win the natural aversion of having to tell his own things to a stranger; consequently he may trust the judge and the justice of the State. Even accepting an unfavourable decision...
The affirmation according to which, alter having fulfilled with conscience and scruple ones own professional duties, the judge does not have other obligation than to respect the society and the State and according to which, consequently, the judge about his own private life can do, like every other citizen, what he wants, is wrong.
This thesis is, in its absoluteness, not defendable... The external credibility of the Magistracy in its whole and in each of its members behaviours is an essential value in a democratic State, today more than yesterday.
The non-Christians believe in the absolute supremacy of the justice as absorbent fact of all the problematic of the norms of the interpersonal relationships, while the Christians can accept this postulate on the condition that one accepts the principle of overcoming justice through chari.
Christ has never said that we must be fair above all, even if in multiple occasions he has exalted the virtue of justice. Instead he has elevated the commandment of charity as obligatory norm of conduct because it is exactly this betterment of quality that distinguishes the Christian.
The judge's role cannot elude the course of history: such that the service that he renders must be part of an adaptation process. But of this,:we cannot ask that only judges participate in his process of adaptation. In this perspective, reforming justice, in the subjective and objective sense, it is not the task of only a few magistrates, but of many people: of the State, collective subjects, and of the public opinion. To recover, in fact, the right to rule of law as unitary reference of the community cannot be, in our modern democracy, the task of a minority .
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| Memorial stone on the place of the ambush on 21th September 1990 |
The word of the Bishop of Agrigento, Mons. Carmelo Ferraro
I would like to reflect with you about the "Livatino phenomenon"... some say that to judge Livatino schools, libraries, gyms, public squares and streets have been entitled. It is still said that, around the testimony of his life, there have been dedicated, monographs, poetries and drawings. we therefore do not commemorate a dead man. Strangely this violent death brings with it the mark of the Crucified Lord of history, , that is it brings the imprint of a force that overcomes even death...
I wonder this following question why is so much attention about Rosario Livatino in the world of young people? Why? We live in a society that exalts weak thought, weak moral and conformism; does what others do, to dress like others want... We live in a society that of man exalts outward appearance and the care of he image. Faith is weak as well; there are weak educative plans. And then, of Rosario Livatino, young people strangely want to have an answer.
[…]To man one can lie, but not for long time. Rosario Livatino's example is illuminating in order to understand how a serious speech can be made to man.
Notes
1. V.Morgante, the bishop: a masterpiece of son, , in Happening, 15 August 1995.
2. Abate, The small judge. Rosario Livatino's profile, ILA Palma, Palerme, 1992-96, pp.32-33.
3. Edith Stein, The mystery of The Christmas them, Corsia of the Servants, Milane 1955, p.36.
Maria Di Lorenzo, . graduated Modern Literature, journalist, has worked for the daily paper Il Tempo, RAI and the Radio Vatican. She collaborates with several news agencies and she has lead a study on the feminine question in post Berlin-wall Europe through the cinema. Recently she has published the volume Con la croce sul cuore (Bologna 2000), biographical profile of the philosopher and Carmelite martyr Edith Stein.
Other news and texts are present in the author's website:
"The Page of Maria Di Lorenzo":
www.mariadilorenzo.net
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