World News – USA – Papal decrees Italian judges murdered by the mafia can be beatified

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis decreed on Tuesday the Italian judge Rosario Livatino, who was killed by the mafia in Sicily in 1990, was a martyr for the faith and could be beatified or declared « blessed ». « 

Livatino, a devout Roman Catholic man, was gunned down after a Mafia squad pulled his car off the road while driving on a Sicilian highway.

Known as the « boy judge » for looking younger than 37, Livatino had launched many investigations into the mob at a time when Sicilian clans were embroiled in a full blown war.

The decree on martyrdom proposed by the Vatican Congregation for the Cause of Saints and approved by the Pope means that Livatino’s intercession with God need not be attributed a miracle in order to be beatified.

A miracle would have to be attributed to Livatino in order for him to be declared a saint.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God works miracles, but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intervene for people who pray to them. A miracle is usually a medically inexplicable healing of a person.

Rosario Livatino, Pope Francis, Beatification, Martyr, Vatican City, Pope John Paul II.