SW News: An Italian judge who was murdered by the Sicilian mafia is set to be declared blessed by Pope Francis. On December the 22nd, the Pope authorized a decree recognizing Judge Rosario Livantino’s death in September 1990 as a martyrdom borne of hatred for the faith. 37-year-old Judge Livantino was gunned down after a Mafia hit squad ran his car off the road as he was driving on a Sicilian highway. His cause of beatification was opened in 1993. It has since collected testimony of the judge's heroic virtue and deep personal piety. Indeed, in 1993 Pope Saint John Paul II praised the late judge as, a “martyr of justice and, indirectly, of the Christian faith.” Judge Livantino’s beatification ceremony is due to take place in Sicily in the spring of next year.