CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis this week approved the canonization of Blessed Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer who converted from his past as a satanic priest to a third-order Dominican and champion of the Rosary.
Longo was born on Feb. 10, 1841, into a devout Catholic family, according to the Dominican Friars, but he began struggling when he lost his mother. He was only 10 years old.
He grew up during a time of political upheaval and increasing secularism in Italy when revolutionary Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi was trying to eliminate the papal states, and his professors at the University of Naples, many of whom were ex-priests, influenced Longo with their hatred of the Catholic Church.
“I, too, grew to hate monks, priests and the Pope,” Longo wrote, “and in particular [I detested] the Dominicans, the most formidable, furious opponents of those great modern professors, proclaimed by the university the sons of progress, the defenders of science, the champions of every sort of freedom.”
Longo soon turned to the occult and mediums, eventually becoming involved in Satanism. He became a satanic priest and promised his soul to a demon, leading rituals and railing against the Church.
After his family failed to turn him back to his faith, they asked Professor Vincenzo Pepe, a Catholic professor from the University of Naples, to intervene.
The professor met with Longo and asked him, “Do you want to die in an insane asylum and be damned forever?”
Pepe convinced Longo to meet with a Dominican priest. Three weeks later, Longo repented on the Feast of the Sacred Heart in 1865. He moved in with Pepe and through him, met many devout Catholics.
Longo had many self-imposed penances after his conversion: He worked in the Neapolitan Hospital for Incurables for two years, prayed often, became a third-order Dominican, and took a vow of celibacy. He publicly renounced his satanic past and preached the Rosary, yet he still struggled with forgiving himself.
Longo was convinced that he would go to hell. However, he wrote about a time he was walking through a field in Pompeii on legal business when Our Lady saved him from almost committing suicide.
“I thought that perhaps as the priesthood of Christ is for eternity, so also the priesthood of Satan is for eternity. So, despite my repentance, I thought: I am still consecrated to Satan, and I am still his slave and property as he awaits me in Hell,” he wrote. “As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide.
“Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Friar Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘One who propagates my Rosary shall be saved.’ Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your Rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation because I shall not leave this earth without propagating your Rosary.’”
Longo dedicated the rest of his life to spreading a devotion to the Rosary, writing extensively on the prayer and composing novenas. He built the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii, with support from a patroness, and founded various schools and orphanages to help underprivileged children. He became good friends with Pope Leo XII and led a popular movement that contributed to the eventual dogmatic proclamation of the Assumption of Mary in 1950.
Longo’s writings inspired Pope John Paul II to announce the Luminous Mysteries in 2002. This same pope beatified Longo in 1980 and quoted one of his prayers in the conclusion of his encyclical, The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The prayer reads: “O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain that unites us to God, bond of love that unites us to the angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of Hell, safe port in our universal shipwreck, we will never abandon you. You will be our comfort in the hour of death: yours our final kiss as life ebbs away. And the last word from our lips will be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary of Pompei, O dearest Mother, O Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the Afflicted. May you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in heaven.”