In the sign of a memory that becomes concrete commitment and civil responsibility, the Messina family welcomed the relic of the blessed judge Rosario Livatino in the church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Provinciale. This is the bloody shirt, worn by the magistrate on the day of the ambush on 21 September 1990 along the SS 640 Agrigento Caltanissetta, which directly recalls the last season of his life, marked by his commitment to financial prevention measures against mafia organizations and by judicial work conducted with confidentiality, rigor and profound moral autonomy. It was precisely while he was on his way to court, without an escort, that Livatino was murdered in a mafia ambush, an execution that struck a magistrate who was a symbol of justice exercised without compromise.
His name, over time, has become the emblem of a judiciary experienced as a service and not as power, until his beatification in 2021 and the recognition of his testimony as that of a “martyr of justice”. It is no coincidence that, in ecclesial and civil memory, Livatino is often associated with the expression “boy judge”, which underlines his young age but also the determination with which he faced a complex season of the fight against the mafia in Sicily. A central element of his personal spirituality was the acronym “STD, Sub Tutela Dei”, which the magistrate noted in his diaries and documents. Not a secret code, as initially hypothesized by investigators after his death, but a declaration of total trust: “Under the protection of God”. An expression that summarizes his unified vision between Christian faith and public function, in which service to justice was experienced as a vocation and responsibility before God and men. The arrival of the relic underlined by the trumpet of the Aosta Mechanized Brigade Band was also an occasion for an institutional meeting: to welcome it, together with the parish priest of the community Don Bartolo Calderone, the religious and the general moderator of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the prosecutor of the Republic of Palmi Emanuele Crescenti and the judge Giuseppe Minutoli, councilor of the Court of Civil Appeal of Messina, who remembered the figure of the man and professional who he made his work a mission, embodying the idea of service as mission. The memory of Livatino, today, is not only a reminder of the sacrifice, but a constant invitation to make legality a concrete practice, rooted in the life of the community. The Messina initiative, enriched by the presence of the young people of the parish, the choir and the folk group I Cariddi with the Insieme Siciliano association, is part of the Marian Jubilee Year among the celebrations for the twentieth year of presence of the religious Missionaries of the Precious Blood in the city of the Strait, strengthening the symbolic value of the event as an opportunity for shared memory and community reflection.