Saint Rosalia of Palermo

Saint Rosalia is the patroness of Palermo, whom its people affectionately call “Santuzza,” the little saint. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on September 4 as a virgin and says only that she is believed to have led a solitary life on Mount Pellegrino. The details of her life come from later tradition, and what is firmly documented is above all the history of her veneration.

According to tradition she lived in the twelfth century and came from a noble family, and her father was Sinibald, lord of Quisquina. She is also said to have spent time at the court of Queen Margaret, wife of the Norman king William I, and then to have left the world. She settled first in a cave on her father’s estate at Quisquina and later in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she spent her days in prayer and penance until her death. The year usually given for her death, 1160, is not certain. Her veneration in Palermo is attested from the thirteenth century, although it was not always fervent.

In 1624 a plague struck Palermo. After a sick woman told how Rosalia had appeared to her in a dream, her grave was sought on Mount Pellegrino, and on July 15, 1624, bones were found there in a cave. In August of that year a Latin inscription was found in a cave at Quisquina, in which Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, declares that for the love of her Lord Jesus Christ she had decided to live in that cave. Its authenticity is doubtful. At the order of the archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Giannettino Doria, the remains were examined, and on February 11, 1625, a commission declared that they were the bones of a woman and recognized them as the relics of Rosalia.

On June 9, 1625, the relics were carried in solemn procession through the city. The plague then began to recede, and the people attributed this to Rosalia’s intercession and have honored her ever since as the patroness of the city. The relics rest in a silver urn in Palermo Cathedral, and the cave on Mount Pellegrino became a shrine. In 1630 Pope Urban VIII entered Rosalia’s name in the Roman Martyrology.

Every year in mid-July Palermo celebrates the Festino in her honor, best known for the great triumphal car bearing her statue that is drawn through the city. On the night of September 3 to 4 the faithful climb Mount Pellegrino on foot to her shrine. In 2024, on the fourth centenary of the finding of the relics, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, presided at the solemn Mass in the cathedral.

In a message of June 29, 2024, to the archbishop of Palermo, Corrado Lorefice, as the Jubilee Year of Saint Rosalia was drawing to a close, Pope Francis called her a hermit virgin who for the love of her Lord accepted the trials of solitude. He presented the words “Per amore Domini mei,” “for the love of my Lord,” as her motto and encouraged the faithful to learn from her love for the poor and fidelity to the Gospel. The Church has venerated her as a saint since the Middle Ages.