From Satanist to Saint: What Bartolo Longo’s life shows us
By Josh Low
Among the most recent saints canonised by Pope Leo XIV last month on 19 October stands a man whose life is a poignant reminder that no one is too far from the love and mercy of God.
Bartolo Longo holds one of the most astonishing stories of conversion in modern Church history—a journey from despair to holiness that now inspires countless people seeking hope and redemption.
Born in the mid-19th century to a devout Catholic family, Bartolo Longo experienced great suffering losing his father as a young boy, which began his path away from the faith.
Young Bartolo grew up during a turbulent era in Italian history, when revolutionary and Freemason, General Giuseppe Garibaldi, together with a nationalist movement fighting for Italian unification, sought to destroy the papal states and the Catholic Church’s influence on society.
The Church in Europe at the time faced competition with the rising popularity of spiritualism and occultism, with many engaging in the occult and public demonstrations against Pope Pius IX.
Swayed by the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the time, including that coming from ex-priests serving as professors at university, he was swept into the currents of spiritual confusion and rebellion as a young man.
“I, too, grew to hate monks, priests and the Pope,” he later wrote.
Seduced by the allure of power, forbidden knowledge and the thirst for the supernatural, he delved into Satanism and was eventually consecrated as a satanic priest after a period of intense study.
However, his descent into darkness left him tormented, physically and mentally. Despite this, God did not abandon him.
Through the prayers of friends who requested the help of whoever was able to lend a hand, and the intercession of the Dominican friars, Bartolo experienced a profound conversion.
At the urging of a faithful Catholic professor at university, and under the guidance of a wise Dominican, Fr Alberto Radente OP, he renounced the occult and returned to the Catholic faith, becoming a third-order Dominican.
Deeply aware of the mercy he had received, Bartolo dedicated his life to reparation, to make up for the harm he had done and to lead others back to God.
Despite publicly renouncing his former ways, he still despaired, unable to forgive himself or see how he could ever be forgiven by God.
“One day in the fields around Pompeii,” he wrote, “I recalled my former condition as a priest of Satan… As I pondered over my condition, I experienced a deep sense of despair.
“Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Fr 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.’”
It was there in the small, impoverished town of Pompeii where Bartolo’s mission took root, promoting the Rosary and imitating its mysteries.
For him, this was not superstition, but confidence in the maternal love of Mary and the mercy of her Son.
Bartolo’s life proclaimed a powerful truth: that no sin is too great for God’s forgiveness, and no person too far gone for redemption.
In 1876 he founded the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, which has become a centre of prayer and miracles, and also established schools, orphanages, and homes for the poor – acts of service born from a heart transformed by grace.
This former Satanist then wrote books on the Rosary, composed novenas and prayer manuals, eventually befriending Pope Leo XIII, who had a great devotion to the Rosary.
Perhaps his most enduring legacy may be the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, for it was from St Bartolo Longo’s writings that Pope St John Paul II drew not only the inspiration for a set of mysteries reflecting Jesus’ public ministry, but also the specific mysteries and the collective title by which they are known.
When Pope St John Paul II beatified Bartolo Longo in 1980, he called him “the man of the Rosary,” and held him up as a sign of hope for modern times.
Bartolo Longo’s journey from Satanist to Saint reminds us that divine mercy reaches into the darkest corners of the human heart; that God’s love is relentless, and that grace can turn even the deepest wounds into channels of compassion and peace.
His canonisation is seen not just as the recognition of a personal miracle, but as a message to all humanity: that sanctity is possible for everyone, no matter their past.
In a broken world filled with despair and hopelessness, Bartolo Longo stands today as a radiant witness that, truly, no one is beyond the love and salvation of God.