Yahoo – AFP,
Vincenzo Pinto with Ella Ide in Rome, 21 June 2014
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Pope
Francis delivers his homily as he celebrates mass in Sibari, in the southern
Italian region of Calabria at the end of his one-day visit in the city, on June
21, 2014
(AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto )
|
Pope
Francis delivers his homily as he celebrates mass in Sibari, in the southern
Italian region of Calabria at the end of his one-day visit in the city, on June
21, 2014
Cassano
allo Jonio (Italy) (AFP) - Pope Francis launched a scathing attack on organised
crime during a trip to the heartland of a feared syndicate on Sunday, declaring
all mafia members "excommunicated" from the Catholic Church.
The mafia
"is the adoration of evil and contempt for common good. This evil must be
beaten, expelled," he told worshippers near the hometown of a toddler killed
in a clan war earlier this year.
"Those
who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in
communion with God. They are excommunicated," he told the congregation.
People who
are excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are
considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife.
The
77-year-old pontiff was speaking at the end of a trip to the territory
controlled by the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia, where he comforted relatives of
"Coco" Campolongo, a three-year-old who was shot dead in January in
an apparent mob hit over money.
"It
must never again happen that a child suffers in this way," the pope said
as he met Coco's father and grandmothers, according to a Vatican spokesman.
Francis visited the Calabria region despite fears that he might provoke the local underworld.
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250,000
people attend the mass celebrated by Pope Francis (unseen) in Sibari,
in the
southern Italian region of Calabria at the end of his one-day visit in the
city,
on June 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto )
|
Francis visited the Calabria region despite fears that he might provoke the local underworld.
"I
pray for him continuously. Do not despair," Francis said during a visit to
Castrovillari prison, where several members of Coco's family are serving time
for drug-related crimes.
He asked them
to pass the message on to the toddler's mother, who was also in prison at the
time of his murder and is now living under house arrest.
Coco was
shot in the head in January, executed along with his grandfather and his
Moroccan companion after a drug debt went unpaid.
The
discovery of his body strapped to a car-seat in a burnt-out Fiat Punto sent
shockwaves through Italy, as did the murder just two months later of another
three-year-old in the nearby Puglia region.
The pope's
trip to what is the second-poorest region in the south of Italy aims not only
to remember child victims but also highlight the problems the young have in
escaping the pervasive grip of the wealthy 'Ndrangheta.
Unemployment
among the under-25s in the region stands at 56.1 percent -- the highest in
Italy in 2013 according to Eurostat -- and local mobsters thrive by offering
idle youngsters work, luring them into their networks.
According
to Save the Children Italy, more than a third of all families in the
impoverished south live in communities known to be under the control of clans.
Youths
'must say no'
Many of the
inmates the pope met at Castrovillari were serving time for mafia-related
crimes.
Under a
blistering southern sun, Francis clasped the hands of some of the 200
prisoners, several of them weeping and throwing their arms around him.
Francis stopped to speak with a group of disabled people in a large crowd of faithful outside the jail, before heading by helicopter to Coco's hometown of Cassano allo Jonio, nestled at the bottom of a steep mountain.
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Pope
Francis blesses a Virgin Mary statue with incense as
he celebrates mass in
Sibari, in the southern Italian region of
Calabria at the end of his one-day
visit in the city, on June 21,
2014 (AFP Photo/Vincenzo Pinto)
|
Francis stopped to speak with a group of disabled people in a large crowd of faithful outside the jail, before heading by helicopter to Coco's hometown of Cassano allo Jonio, nestled at the bottom of a steep mountain.
There the
pope, who was met with cheers and the release of dozens of yellow and white
balloons -- the Vatican colours -- visited a hospice before sharing a lunch of
spaghetti and meatballs with poor people and young drug addicts.
"Strong
is he who, once fallen, manages to rise up again," the pontiff told the
addicts.
Francis
then made a short stop to pray at the spot in the nearby town of Sibari where a
priest was beaten to death in January with an iron bar in a failed extortion
attempt.
At the mass
attended by more than 250,000 people at the close of day he warned young people
in the region that they "must say no" or risk being absorbed into the
mafia world.
Francis's
determination to rattle mafiosi has sparked warnings that he himself could
become a target.
The
'Ndrangheta plays a leading role in the global cocaine trade and its Calabria
bastion is a major transit point for drug shipments from Latin America to the
rest of Europe.
It has
benefitted in the past from historic ties to the Church, with dons claiming to
be God-fearing Catholics and priests turning a blind eye to crimes.
But over
the past 20 years numerous priests have taken part in the fight against the
clans -- sometimes paying for their bravery with their lives.
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