HOW CATHOLIC RITES AND PRAYERS AND MEDALS GIVE SOLACE TO THE EVIL MAFIA CONSCIENCE
When the pontiff denounced the “evil” of Italy’s mafias he was sending a
message to complicit priests as well as mobsters. The dons are getting nervous,
and dangerous.
ROME, Italy — When Sicilian Mafia superboss Bernardo Provenzano was nabbed in a
little farmhouse near Corleone, Sicily, in April 2006 after 43 years on the lam,
police found one of his five Bibles especially interesting. Among the worn
Catholic prayer cards and tattered photos of Jesus Christ stuffed between the
pages, Provenzano had written a secret code, including dots, arrows and other
notations he used to guide the Cosa Nostra from his secret hideout to kill,
threaten, extort and rob.
Provenzano, a devout Catholic who reportedly watched Mass on television or
listened to it on the radio every day, had also underlined and retyped scores of
passages from both the Old and New Testament, including several from the Book of
Revelation, including one (17:7) that implied he was doing God's work: "For God
hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their
kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled."
Provenzano was hardly the first Mafioso to hide behind his Catholic faith. There
has always been a close connection between the Catholic Church and mafia-style
organized crime syndicates, especially in the small villages of southern Italy
where local priests often are complicit in criminal activity, either by doling
out sacred forgiveness for heinous crimes or acting as character witnesses for
the most unworthy criminals.
Mobster hideouts often are plastered with Catholic icons, including rosaries,
crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary. But on Saturday, when Pope Francis
visited the epicenter of the ‘Ndrangheta criminal gangland in Calabria, he made
it clear that organized crime had to end, calling the ‘Ndrangheta’s activity an
“adoration of evil and contempt for the common good.”
“If the godfathers can find a way to stop him, they will seriously consider it.”
Deviating from his prepared script, Francis repeated his previous condemnation
of criminal activity, telling a crowd of 200,000 faithful that those who are
involved in mafia-style organized crime gangs should consider themselves
excommunicated immediately (though the papal spokesman was quick to clarify that
excommunication is a legal act and the pope’s words did not reflect a change in
Canon law on the matter).
"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in
communion with God. They are excommunicated,” said the Pope. “This evil must be
fought against. It must be pushed aside. We must say no to it.”
Francis’s message was not just meant for the gangsters. John Dickie, professor
of Italian studies at University College London and author of several books on
Italian organized crime including the recent Mafia Republic, told The Daily
Beast that the pope was talking to the priests, too.
“The real audience of Pope Francis’s message was the local church,” Dickie told
The Daily Beast. “There is a very long history of silence and complicity with
the Catholic Church and the Mafia. For years many priests have been happy to
allow the Mafia to dress themselves up as upstanding members of communities.”
Now, Dickie says, the church is distancing itself from the perceived alliance.
The move started with John Paul II, who was the first pope to ever use the word
“mafia” when he denounced the Sicilian Cosa Nostra at a Mass in Agrigento in
1993. Before that, the Church had largely turned a blind eye to the criminal
gangs, even denying in some cases that the Mafia existed at all.
John Paul II’s words had two significant impacts. A handful of Mafiosi serving
sentences in Italian prisons started cooperating with the police, becoming “pentiti”
or turncoats. But the Mafia also took its revenge, setting off bombs in Rome,
Florence and Milan that killed ten people. The attacks targeted cultural
entities like the Uffizi in Florence, and also hit the basilica of San Giovanni
in Rome—John Paul II’s titular church.
So far, there has been no retaliation or direct threat against Francis, who
continues to defy his security detail by refusing to use the bullet-proof
popemobile in crowds. But in November 2013, Nicola Gratteri, a leading
anti-mafia prosecutor in Calabria admitted that Pope Francis was making
criminals “very nervous,” warning that the pope’s hard line against organized
crime could put him in danger.
In an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, Gratteri, who lives under
constant police protection for his own anti-Mafia work, said the pope should be
cautious. “If the godfathers can find a way to stop him, they will seriously
consider it,” Gratteri said. “Those who have up until now profited from the
influence and wealth drawn from the church are getting very nervous. For many
years, the mafia has laundered money and made investments with the complicity of
the church.”
Reform-minded Francis has not been afraid to tackle the Vatican’s burgeoning
problems, including clearing out the least effective members of the Curia and
firing the entire board of the Vatican Bank. But ministering to the mob might be
more challenging. “A gunman from the ‘Ndrangheta will pray and kiss his rosary
before shooting someone,” Gratteri says. It will likely take more than a threat
from Rome to change the mindset of a mafioso.