Piotr Kowalczuk
Italian media emphasize that the Pope is embarking on a pilgrimage to a very difficult area. Naples is a city of striking contrasts, between poverty and ostentatious wealth; social conflicts, and above all, as Italians say, the capital of Italian lawlessness. The entire Campania region is permeated by often conflicting family clans of the local mafia organization camorra, which has existed for over 200 years. It is estimated that the profits from camorra’s business (drug trafficking, illegal disposal of toxic waste, extortion, etc.) currently amount to over 13 billion euros annually. The number of innocent fatal victims of camorra since 1980 is estimated at nearly 4,000 people, including women and children. Commentators wonder whether Leon XIV, following the example of his three predecessors, will address the problem of camorra, especially since priests fighting mafia influence and gangster mentality also fall victim to mafia organizations.
Priests murdered by mafia organizations
The first priests known by name who fell victim to the mafia were Antonio Polimeni and Giorgio Fallara, shot in Torre, Sicily, in the distant year 1862. It is estimated that over a hundred clergymen, mainly in Sicily, Campania, and Calabria, have fallen victim to gangsters in total. One of the most famous is Father Peppe Diana, murdered at the age of 35 in Casal di Principe (Campania) in 1994, on his name day, in the sacristy, as he was preparing for Mass. Three years earlier, Father Diana wrote an open letter, distributed in nearby parishes, titled: “For the love of my faithful, I will not be silent,” in which he argued that one must not surrender to the principle of “omerta,” meaning the conspiracy of silence in the face of mafia crimes.
Father Diana fought the camorra in his sermons and oratories, appealing especially to young people not to get involved in the criminal activities of the clans. On March 19, on the 32nd anniversary of his death, his beatification process began. For similar activities in Palermo in 1993, Father Pino Pulisi was murdered at the age of 56 in front of his home. Six years later, John Paul II gave permission for his beatification process to begin. He was declared blessed by the Catholic Church in 2013.
Popes on the Mafia
The first of the popes to publicly condemn mafia organizations was John Paul II. On May 9, 1993, in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Sicily, striking the ground with his pastoral staff, he chanted: “Those who have so many deaths on their conscience must understand that it is forbidden to kill the innocent. In the name of Christ, who is life, the way, and the truth, I say to those responsible: convert, because one day the Judgment of God will come!” In response, as it were, the mafia carried out bomb attacks in Rome, damaging the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the Church of St. George in Velabrum.
Benedict XVI, during his pilgrimage to Sicily, said in Palermo that the mafia is a form of exploitation of people, and therefore is contrary to the will of God and the Gospel. He called mafia involvement a path to death. He appealed to young people not to accept the mafia, to oppose evil, and to engage in building a society based on justice and the pursuit of good. He also paid tribute to the memory of Pino Puglisi and other victims of the mafia.
Pope Francis consistently called mafiosi “excommunicated.” He pointed out that they are not Christians because their lives, contrary to the teachings of the Gospel, are subordinated to the “culture of death.” He repeatedly called the corrupt methods of the mafia “the devil entering through the pocket.”
