A former Satanist and occultist is among seven people made a new saint by Pope Leo XIV.
Bartolo Longo was canonised during a ceremony at the Vatican on Sunday alongside a layman killed in 1945 for advocating monogamous marriage.
About 70,000 people attended the announcement as portraits of the seven saints were unfurled from windows over the square. The first US pope walked out from St Peter’s Basilica dressed in ceremonial white cassock with a mitre on his head.
“Today we have before us seven witnesses, the new Saints, who, with God’s grace, kept the lamp of faith burning,” Leo said at the Vatican. “May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us in our shared vocation to holiness.”
Longo, was was born in 1841 and died in 1926, was ordained as a Satanic priest before later re-converting to Catholicism.
Longo was born to parents who were devout Catholics. His father died in 1851 and his mother remarried a lawyer. Longo went on to study law in 1961 at the University of Naples.
During Longo’s time at university, the Church in Europe was competing with popularity for spiritualism and occultism, meaning many students took part in public demonstrations against the pope and believed in witchcraft.
After some study and several spiritual experiences Longo was ordained as a Satanist. A decade later, Longo had renounced spiritualism and became a Dominican tertiary, taking the name Rosario in 1871.
He rejoined Catholicism and went on to found the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii.
In 1873 Longo began restoring a dilapidated church and sponsored a festival in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary. Alleged miracles began to be reported and Longo promoted the rosary until his death at age 85 in 1926.
Throughout his life, Longo advocated for social justice. He founded schools, orphanages and charitable institutions. In particular, he focused on the children of prisoners as he believed in the power of education and mercy to transform lives.
Another notable new saint was Peter To Rot, born 1912 and who died in 1945, a lay catechist in Papua New Guinea who was martyred during the Japanese occupation in World War II.
To Rot was left in charge of the village after its Catholic priest was taken to a Japanese labour camp. Despite Japanese oppression, To Rot worked in secret to keep the faith. He ultimately was arrested and sent to a manual labor camp before he was killed by lethal injection for his martyrism of the Catholic faith.
The other new saints include Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan (1869-1915), José Gregoria Hernández (1864-1919), Maria Troncatti (1883-1969), María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez (1903-1977) and Vincenza Maria Poloni (1802-1855).
