Bartolo Longo

Bartolo Longo (February 10, 1841 – October 5, 1926) was an Italian lawyer who has been beatified by the Catholic Church. He presented himself as a former "Satanic priest" who returned to the Catholic faith and became a Dominican tertiary, dedicating his life to the rosary and the Virgin Mary. He was eventually awarded a papal knighthood of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

Early years
Bartolo Longo, was born into a wealthy family on February 10, 1841, in the small town of Latiano, near Brindisi, in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His parents were devout Catholics. In 1851, Longo's father died and his mother remarried a lawyer. Despite Longo's stepfather wanting him to study in order to become a teacher, Longo was set on becoming a lawyer. In 1861, Longo succeeded in convincing his stepfather and was sent to the University of Naples to study law.

In the 1860s, the Catholic Church in Italy found itself at odds with the strong nationalistic movement that inspired the cause for Risorgimento. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who played a key role in Italian unification, saw the papacy as an antagonist to Italian nationalism and actively campaigned for the elimination of the papal office altogether. The Church in Europe was also competing with the growing popularity of Spiritualism and Occultism. Because of this, many students at the University of Naples took part in public demonstrations against the pope, believed in witchcraft, and consulted Neapolitan mediums. Longo claimed that, during that time, he became involved with a movement that led him into a Satanist cult.. According to Longo, after some study and several "spiritual" experiences, he was ordained as a Satanic priest.

Conversion to Catholicism


In the following years, Longo's life became one of "depression, nervousness, and confusion". Bothered by paranoia and anxiety, he turned to a hometown friend, Vincenzo Pepe, for guidance. It was Pepe who convinced him, in Longo's account, to abandon Satanism and introduced him to the Dominican friar and Catholic priest Alberto Radente, who led him to a devotion to the Virgin Mary and the Rosary. On October 7, 1871, Longo became a Dominican tertiary and took the name "Rosario". Around this time, he reportedly visited a séance and held up a rosary, declaring: "I renounce spiritualism because it is nothing but a maze of error and falsehood." He also came to know some Franciscan friars with whom he helped the poor and incurably ill for two years. Bartolo also kept up his law practice, which took him to the nearby village of Pompei. He went to Pompei to take care of the affairs of Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco.

In Pompei, Longo later recounted, he was shocked at the erosion of the people's faith. He wrote, "Their religion was a mixture of superstition and popular tradition. [...] For their every need, [...] they would go to a witch, a sorceress, in order to obtain charms and witchcraft." Through talking to the citizens, Bartolo came to recognize their severe lack of catechesis. When he asked one man if there was only one God, the fellow answered: "When I was a child, I remember people telling me there were three. Now, after so many years, I don't know if one of them is dead or one has married."

Longo wrote of his personal struggles with mental illness, paranoia, depression, and anxiety. At one point, he noted struggling with suicidal thoughts, but rejected them by recalling the promise of St. Dominic: "he who propagates my Rosary will be saved". Longo wrote that this promise is what convinced him to encourage public devotion to the Rosary.

Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei


With the help of Countess Mariana di Fusco, he inaugurated a confraternity of the Rosary and in October 1873 started restoring a dilapidated church. He sponsored a festival in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary.

In 1875, Longo obtained as a gift a painting portraying Our Lady of the Rosary, with Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine of Siena. M. Concetta de Litala, a religious sister of the Monastery of the Rosary at Porta Medina, had been holding it for the Dominican priest Alberto Radente. Radente had acquired it from a junk-shop dealer in Naples for a very small sum. The painting was in bad condition and Longo wrote of his immediate distaste of the poor artistic quality when he first saw it. However, he accepted the gift to conserve funds and to not insult Concetta. Longo raised funds to restore the image and placed it in the church in an effort to encourage pilgrimages.

Alleged miracles began to be reported and people began flocking in droves to the church. Longo was encouraged by the Bishop of Nola to begin the construction of a larger church—the cornerstone being laid on May 8, 1876. The church was consecrated in May 1891 by Cardinal La Valletta (representing Pope Leo XIII). In 1939, the church was enlarged to a basilica, known today as the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompei.

Later life and death


At the suggestion of Pope Leo XIII, Bartolo Longo and the Countess Mariana di Fusco were married on April 7, 1885. The couple remained continent (abstained from intercourse), and continued to perform many charitable works and provided for orphaned children and the children of prisoners, which was radical for its time. In 1906 they donated the entire property of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei to the Holy See. Longo continued promoting the Rosary until his death on October 5, 1926, at the age of 85. The piazza on which his basilica stands has since been named in memory of Longo. His body is encased in a glass tomb and he is wearing the mantle and regalia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, a papal order of knighthood.

Beatification
Longo's spiritual writings were approved by theologians on February 1, 1939 and April 4, 1943. His cause was formally opened on February 28, 1947, and he was given the title Servant of God.

On October 26, 1980, Longo was beatified by Pope John Paul II, who would call him the "Apostle of the Rosary" and mentioned him specifically in his apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary).