Satanic priest who ‘bought his soul to satan’ turns into latest saint within the Catholic Church
‘Each saint has a previous, each sinner has a future’, Oscar Wilde as soon as mentioned – and that actually rings true for the most recent one appointed by Pope Leo XIV.
Earlier this month, hundreds of individuals gathered in St Peter’s Sq. as seven new saints had been canonised by the pinnacle of the Catholic Church.
“Right now we now have earlier than us seven witnesses, the brand new saints, who, with God’s grace, saved the lamp of religion burning,” the Pope instructed the greater than 70,000-strong crowd on 19 October.
“Certainly, they themselves turned lamps able to spreading the sunshine of Christ. Could their intercession help us in our trials and their instance encourage us in our shared vocation to holiness.”
He described the seven saints – together with a ‘physician of the poor’ from Venezuela, an archbishop who was killed within the Armenian genocide, and three nuns – as ‘martyrs for his or her religion’, ‘evangelisers and missionaries’, ‘charismatic founders’ of congregations, or ‘benefactors of humanity’.
The canonisation ceremony, which is Pope Leo’s second since he took over, additionally honoured a former satanist ‘priest’, Bartolo Longo.
Who was Bartolo Longo?
Longo’s backstory is arguably probably the most attention-grabbing out of the seven new saints, provided that he spectacularly defected from demonic worship after a superb few years of dabbling in it.
He was born in Latiano, Italy, in February 1841 to a household of religious Roman Catholics – however reportedly started to distance himself from his religion whereas learning regulation in Naples within the 1860s.
In accordance to the Catholic information community EWTN, Longo then turned immersed in a Satanist cult following the demise of his father and is alleged to have claimed that he was ‘ordained’ as a so-called Satanist ‘priest’.
‘Pact with a demon’
Longo additionally took half in excessive fasting and allegedly made a pact with a demon, the Each day Mail reported.
He then reportedly struggled with anxiousness and melancholy for a number of years till a college professor, Vincenzo Pepe, intervened.
The educational is alleged to have satisfied Longo to embrace Catholicism as soon as once more – seeing him surrender Satanism, take a vow of celibacy, and utterly flip his life round.
Miracles and discovering God once more
Previous to his demise in 1926, Longo did quite a lot of the Lord’s work.
By 1871, he had grow to be a third-order Dominican and was feverishly working to encourage folks in Pompeii to return to their religion.
He went on to obtain a portrait of Our Girl of the Rosary at Pompeii, and in accordance to the Catholic Information Company, ‘miracles began to occur’.
On the primary day Longo unveiled the image to the general public, a 12-year-old lady who suffered from ‘incurable’ epileptic seizures was mentioned to have been ‘utterly healed’.
Archbishop Tommaso Caputo of Pompei instructed EWTN of the saint’s work: “Longo arrived in Pompeii to care for the properties of the countess and, strolling by way of these streets – harmful due to the presence of bandits and malaria – he felt an interior inspiration.
“That day, the younger lawyer promised himself that he would by no means go away that valley of Pompeii with out first spreading the prayer of the rosary. All of it started that day.
“Longo started by catechising the peasants; he then renovated the small parish church of the Holy Saviour and, on the recommendation of Bishop Giuseppe Formisano of Nola, determined to construct a brand new church devoted to Our Girl of the Rosary – this church turned the Shrine of Our Girl of Pompeii.”
Amongst his myriad of charitable efforts, Longo opened an orphanage for women in 1887, in addition to an institute to accommodate the sons of prisoners in 1892, adopted by one for his or her daughters in 1922.
His work finally earned him a sainthood, which he was awarded earlier this month.
Longo’s final phrases
The reported final phrases of Longo, who is called the ‘Apostle of the Rosary’, had been: “My solely want is to see Mary who saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Devil.”
Members of the Catholic Church have hailed Longo as an inspiration on account of his psychological well being struggles, corresponding to Dominican Father Joseph-Anthony Kress.
“As a priest, I’ve seen many individuals who suppose that after they convert…that psychological well being shouldn’t be a problem anymore,” he instructed EWTN. “However [Longo] is a good witness to anyone who struggles by way of that.”
He added that each time the saint can be ‘on the very brink of despair, he recalled the promise of our Blessed Mom to St. Dominic that anybody who promotes the rosary can be saved’.
“And so it was the guarantees that gave him sufficient hope to persevere by way of these darkish moments,” Kress mentioned.
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