Saint of the day October 6: Blessed Bartolo Longo. Catholic Saints

Every October 6 the Church remembers Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926), Italian layman and lawyer, founder of the Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii (Italy). Fervent catechist and man dedicated to assisting those most in need, recognized as one of the greatest disseminators of the devotion of the Holy Rosary in the 20th century.

In his youth, Bartolo became involved with the world of militant atheism, beginning a downward spiral that would lead him to spiritualism, infected by the anti-Christian fashions of his time. He remained living like this until he finally let God touch his heart, returning to the Christian faith definitively.

In his conversion process, the Virgin Mary played a decisive role, to the point that She would become the source of inspiration for his life. Not by chance, Bartolo was called “the man of the Virgin” by Pope Saint John Paul II.

Walking through the shadows

Bartolo Longo was born in the town of Latiano (Italy), on February 10, 1841. Before obtaining a law degree from the University of Naples, he became entangled in the world of anti-Christian practices, very common at the time. While engaging in politics, he fell prey to superstitions and spiritualism. It is even said that he became a “medium” of the first rank and a “spiritualist priest.”

On the other hand, Hegel’s philosophy and Renan’s transcendent rationalism had him ideologically captured. In the process he began to hate the Church, organizing events and conferences against it, praising anyone who criticized it.

The man of the Virgin Mary

After an internal crisis, and with the help of his friend Vicente Pepe and the Dominican Father Alberto Radente, he returned to the faith. His conversion took place on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1865, in the Church of the Rosary in Naples. After his encounter with Christ he abandoned the libertine life and dedicated himself to works of charity and the study of religion.

He would later write, alluding to his own experience, that “there can be no sinner so lost, no soul enslaved by the merciless enemy of man, Satan, that he cannot be saved by the admirable virtue and efficacy of the most holy Rosary of Mary, grasping of that mysterious chain that the most merciful Queen of the mystical roses extends to us from heaven, to save the sad shipwrecked people of this most stormy sea of ​​the world.”

A thousand times the Rosary

In 1876, at the suggestion of the bishop of Nola, Longo began a campaign to build a temple at Pompeii. As a result of their efforts and the cooperation of many citizens, the beautiful Sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary, the great sponsor of the work, was built.

On October 5, 1926, at the age of 85, Bartolo Longo died in Pompeii. In his will he wrote the following: “I wish to die as a Dominican tertiary… in the arms of the Virgin of the Rosary, with the assistance of my father Saint Dominic and my mother Saint Catherine of Siena.” His remains rest, along with those of his closest collaborators (the Countess of Fusco, the father and sister of Maria Concetta Lital), in the crypt beneath the Basilica he built.

Longo and Pope Saint John Paul II

In the homily of his beatification, on October 26, 1980, Pope Saint John Paul II said that he “for love of Mary became a writer, an apostle of the Gospel, a propagator of the Rosary, founder of the famous sanctuary (dedicated to the Virgin del Rosario) in the midst of enormous difficulties and adversities; “For love of Mary, he created charity institutes and became a beggar for the children of the poor.”

Then the Holy Father continued: “He transformed Pompeii into a citadel of human and Christian goodness; For love of Mary he endured tribulations and slander in silence, passing through a long Gethsemane, always trusting in Providence, always obedient to the Pope and the Church.”

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