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Gesù che appare a santa Margherita Alacoque
His dying words were,“I hope that I will see Mary who saved me from Satan’s claws!” In 1891 Bartolo Longo, a Dominican Brother, commissioned Orazio Orazi (1848-1912) to paint this scene of Saint Marguerite Alacoque’s receiving the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Orazi was an Oratorian priest, who after seminary attended the Academy of Fine Art in Rome. He painted mostly religious subjects, though he was better known as a photographer for his unusual compositions. Longo was born in 1841, the second of four children, into a well-to-do family in the village of Latiano, near Brindisi, in southern Italy. As twenty-one old law student at the University of Naples, he fell under the influence of anti-clerical professors and students drawn to spiritualism inspired by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), who claimed communication with the dead. Longo began to attend senaces, perhaps in attempt to communicate with his father, a prominent physician, who had died when he was ten. He became fascinated with esoteric occult doctrines, which eventually led him to join a Satanist cult. In 1865 after a grueling training regime that demanded long periods of fasting and excruciating mortifications, he was ordained a Satanic priest. He publicly demonstrated against Pope Pius IX (1792–1878) and officiated at Black Masses. The strain of unrelenting fasting and implacable censure of family and friends brought him to the edge of a nervous breakdown. He began to hear the voice of his dead father admonishing him to “return to the Church.” In desperation he sought out his childhood friend Vincenzo Pepe for guidance, who in turn introduced him to the Dominican friar Alberto Radente. Radente convinced him to renounce Satanism and heard his full confession. In 1872, after a period of repentance, Longo joined the Dominicans as a lay brother, dedicating his life to the Virgin Mary. He settled in Pompeii where in 1876 he undertook the construction of what would become the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii. Contessa Mariana di Fusco, a wealthy widow, who Longo with his law degree had assisted in the management of her extensive properties, donated land for the basilica. Together they engaged in many charitable works, including establishing orphanages and trade schools, and, revolutionary for its time, providing for the children of prisoners. At the urging of Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903), in 1885 Longo and Fusco were maried. Longo having taken a vow of chastity, the pair lived as brother and sister. Upon the basilica’s completion in 1891, this painting was installed on one of the basilica’s altars. After more than five decades of service to the Church, Longo died in 1924, leaving Orazi’s painting in his will to the basilica where it still can be seen. On October 26, 1980 he was beatified by Pope John Paul II (1920–2005).
Such was the improbable life of Bartolo Longo, who at one time was a
Satanic priest, but ended up a saint.
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