Pro-life student group wins affiliation at Scottish university

Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, pictured in Warsaw Feb. 12, 2020. / episkopat.pl.

Warsaw, Poland, Jun 23, 2021 / 03:30 am (CNA).
A Polish Catholic archbishop urged members of the European Parliament on … […]

Rome Newsroom, Sep 21, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Thirty years ago Judge Rosario Livatino was brutally killed by the mafia on his commute to work at a courthouse in Sicily. Today he is recognized in the Catholic Church as a Servant of God and a candidate for sainthood. 

Before his murder at the age of 37 on Sept. 21, 1990, Livatino spoke as a young lawyer about the intersection between the law and faith. 

“The duty of the magistrate is to decide; however, to decide is also to choose… And it is precisely in this choosing in order to decide, in deciding so as to put things in order, that the judge who believes may find a relationship with God. It is a direct relationship, because to administer justice is to realize oneself, to pray, to dedicate oneself to God. It is an indirect relationship, mediated by love for the person under judgment,” Livatino said at a conference in 1986.

“However, believers and non-believers must, in the moment of judging, dismiss all vanity and above all pride; they must feel the full weight of power entrusted to their hands, a weight all the greater because power is exercised in freedom and autonomy. And this task will be the lighter the more the judge humbly senses his own weaknesses,” he said. 

Livatino’s convictions about his vocation within the legal profession and commitment to justice were tested at a time when the mafia demanded a weak judiciary in Sicily. 

For a decade he worked as a prosecutor dealing with the criminal activity of the mafia throughout the 1980s and confronted what Italians later called the “Tangentopoli,” or the corrupt system of mafia bribes and kickbacks given for public works contracts. 

Livatino went on to serve as a judge at the Court of Agrigento in 1989. He was driving unescorted toward the Agrigento courthouse when another car hit him, sending him off the road. He ran from the crashed vehicle into a field, but was shot in the back and then killed with more gunshots.

After his death, a Bible full of notations was found in his desk, where he always kept a crucifix. 

On a pastoral visit to Sicily in 1993, Pope John Paul II called Livatino a “martyr of justice and indirectly of faith.” 

Cardinal Francesco Montenegro, the current archbishop of Agrigento, told Italian media on the 30th anniversary of Livatino’s death that the judge was dedicated “not only to the cause of human justice, but to the Christian faith.”

“The strength of this faith was the cornerstone of his life as an operator of justice,” the cardinal told the Italian SIR news agency Sept. 21.

“Livatino was killed because he was prosecuting the mafia gangs by preventing their criminal activity, where they would have demanded weak judicial management. A service that he carried out with a strong sense of justice that came from his faith,” he said. 

The courthouse where Livatino used to work in Agrigento also organized a conference over the weekend marking the anniversary of his death.

“Remembering Rosario Livatino … means urging the whole community to join forces and lay the foundations for a future no longer burdened by mafia loans,” Roberto Fico, president of the chamber, said at the event Sept. 19, according to La Repubblica. 

“And it means strengthening the determination — which continues to animate so many judges and members of the police on the front line against organized crime — to want to do their duty at all costs.” 

Pope Francis expressed his support this year for an initiative aimed at countering mafia organizations’ use of the figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary to promote submission to the will of the mafia boss.

A working group organized by the Pontifical International Marian Academy will bring together about 40 Church and civil leaders to address the abuse of Marian devotions by mafia organizations, who use her figure to wield power and exert control.

The pope previously met with the Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission on the anniversary of Livatino’s death in 2017. On that occasion, he said that dismantling the mafia begins with a political commitment to social justice and economic reform.

The pope said that corrupt organizations can serve as an alternative social structure which roots itself in areas where justice and human rights are lacking. Corruption, he noted, “always finds a way to justify itself, presenting itself as the ‘normal’ condition, the solution for those who are ‘shrewd,’ the way to reach one’s goals.”

The diocesan phase of Livatino’s cause closed in September 2018. There are two alleged miracles attributed to his intercession that need to be verified by the Vatican.

“Justice is necessary, but not sufficient, and can and must be overcome by the law of charity which is the law of love, love of neighbor and God,” Livatino said. 

“And once more it will be the law of love, the vivifying strength of faith, that will solve the problem at its roots. Let’s remember Jesus’ words to the adulterous woman: ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’ By these words, he indicated the deep reason of our difficulty: sin is shadow; in order to judge there is need of light, and no man is absolute light himself.” 

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Dublin, Ireland, Jan 24, 2018 / 11:08 pm (CNA).- An Irish priest and exorcist is asking the country’s bishops for more support after noticing a dramatic increase in demonic activity in the country.

In a recent interview with The Irish Catholic, Fr. Pat Collins said he has been overwhelmed with the number of requests for exorcisms from the faithful in Ireland. In an open letter, he has urged the Irish bishops to train more priests to deal with the demand.

“(I)t’s only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially,” Collins told The Irish Catholic.

Collins’ comments are on par with those of other exorcists throughout the world, including the International Association of Exorcists (IAE), a group of 400 Catholic leaders and priests, which has reported a dramatic increase in demonic activity in recent years.

In 2014, the IAE said the levels of demonic activity throughout the world had reached what they considered a “pastoral emergency.”

Collins said that he was “baffled” that the bishops haven’t trained more exorcists for Ireland, and added that anyone who doesn’t see the need for more exorcists is “out of touch with reality.”

“What I’m finding out desperately, is people who in their own minds believe – rightly or wrongly – that they’re afflicted by an evil spirit,” Collins said.

“I think in many cases they wrongly think it, but when they turn to the Church, the Church doesn’t know what to do with them and they refer them on either to a psychologist or to somebody that they’ve heard of that is interested in this form of ministry, and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped,” he added.

A spokesperson for the bishops’ conference at Maynooth told The Irish Catholic that each diocese is required to have a trained exorcist, who is able to discern the difference between signs of true demonic possession and signs of mental or psychological illness.

“Exorcisms are very rare and this office has not been made aware of any cases of ‘exorcism’ in Ireland in recent years,” the spokesperson said.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between demonic activity and mental illness. From paragraph 1673: “Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church. Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness.”

In April 2015, the Congregation for the Clergy and the Sacerdos Institute hosted a seminar at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum University, specifically aimed at training priests and lay people in spotting the differences between psychological problems and demonic possession.

The conference included interventions from a wide range of experts in the field of exorcism, including practicing exorcists, medical professionals, psychologists, lawyers, and theologians.

Recently updated rules of the Catholic rite of exorcism also state that a person who believes they are possessed must first rule out mental illness before seeking an exorcism. If the rite of exorcism is still needed, they may seek out a priest who has been trained and appointed as exorcist for his diocese by his bishop.

Collins noted that it often takes multiple meetings with a person seeking an exorcism to determine precisely what is afflicting them, but noted that whether it is true demonic activity or other problems, the requests have gone up dramatically in recent years.

Father Vincent Lampert, a Vatican-trained exorcist and a parish priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, has previously told CNA that the best defense against demonic possession is staying close to the sacraments.

In his open letter to the Irish bishops, Collins wrote: “…there has been increasing evidence of the malicious activity of the evil one.”

“I can’t judge from my own subjective experience because people see on the internet that I’m supposed to be an exorcist so I get an inordinate number of calls from people, and emails, all I can say is I have that reputation, but it’s only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially,” he wrote.

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