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Pope Francis celebrates Mass in Palermo. Alessandra Tarantino

Pope Francis travels to Sicily to honour a priest shot dead by the Mafia

The trip comes at a difficult time for the pontiff.

POPE FRANCIS APPEALED to Mafiosi to renounce their quests for power and money as he visited Sicily to honour a priest slain by mob henchmen for trying to protect youths from the evil clutches of organised crime.

The daylong trip by Francis in the Mediterranean island where the Cosa Nostra is rooted marked the 25th anniversary of the assassination in a Palermo slum of the Rev. Giuseppe “Pino” Puglisi, who was declared a martyr by the Vatican and beatified in 2013, the last formal step before possible sainthood.

Francis was paying tribute to the priest who worked to keep unemployed Palermo youths in a poor neighborhood from turning to local Mafia bosses for jobs like pushing drugs.

The papal pilgrimage came in counterpoint to revelations, battering the highest levels of the church and testing the faith of rank-and-file Catholics worldwide, that many priests and bishops sexually abused children or connived to protect the abusers in various nations.

Tens of thousands of people cheered Francis at an open air Mass in late morning at an esplanade along the port city’s waterfront.

“Let’s renew the church,” read a large banner held by young people in the crowd as Francis was driven by in his white popemobile.

Pressure is building on Francis to say what he knew about the sexual misconduct of US prelate Theodore McCarrick, who recently was stripped of his cardinal’s rank by the pope.

In a city where local bosses exert their sway, often just by walking through the neighborhood, and many business owners systematically pay Cosa Nostra “protection” money to stay open, Francis drew applause as he told the crowd:

If the Mafioso litany is, ‘you don’t know who I am,’ the Christian one is ‘I need you.’ If the Mafia threat is ‘you will pay me,’ the Christian prayer is ‘Lord, help me to love.’

“Thus I say to the Mafiosi: change, brothers and sisters. Quit thinking about yourselves and your money,” Francis continued in his homily.

Italy Pope Mafia A banner reading, 'Let's renew the church'. Alessandra Tarantino / PA Images Alessandra Tarantino / PA Images / PA Images

“You know, a funeral shroud doesn’t have pockets. You can’t take it with you,” Francis said of organised crime’s ill-gained wealth from drug and arms trafficking, extortion and betting and prostitution rackets.

You give life to others, not take it away. You can’t believe in God and hate your brother, take away life with hatred.

On his 56th birthday, Puglisi was fatally shot in the neck on the doorstep of his home by a gunman that courts later ruled was carrying out orders by Mafia bosses irritated by the priest’s efforts to encourage young people to turn their backs on the mob.

Puglisi was gunned down a few months after Pope John Paul II, during a pilgrimage to Sicily, angrily demanded that mobsters convert their hearts or face the wrath of God at the end of their lives. At that time, the island was still shocked by the 1992 bombing assassinations, by Cosa Nostra, of Italy’s top anti-Mafia magistrates.

The gunman later turned state’s evidence, testifying that Puglisi turned to him with a smile and said he was expecting to be killed.

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19 Comments
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    Mute Diddles Daffy
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:22 PM

    Travels for one priest. Can’t for 798 children

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    Mute Paul Fahey
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:27 PM

    @Diddles Daffy: if only it were just 798 children, there are certainly many more of these shit pits full of children the church deem unworthy.

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    Mute Seamus Mac
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    Sep 15th 2018, 5:25 PM

    @Paul Fahey: society deemed them unworthy.

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    Mute Barry Somers
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    Sep 15th 2018, 5:31 PM

    @Seamus Mac: Catholic Church created the culture of hate towards them,

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    Mute Paul Fahey
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    Sep 15th 2018, 5:47 PM

    @Seamus Mac: who set the moral standard? Who determined who and what was unworthy? Who controlled society? Who controlled education? Who profited from the labour of these children and their mothers?

    Make no mistake this is the church, society was terrified of it and the way in which it could, and did, make you a social outcast.

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    Mute Aine O Connor
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    Sep 15th 2018, 9:42 PM

    @Paul Fahey:
    And don’t forget the fathers who abandoned the women and the children.

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    Mute lapsy pa
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    Sep 16th 2018, 1:57 AM

    @Paul Fahey: the impoverished population ! Ffs ! Worse happens in people’s homes

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    Mute Gaius Gracchus
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:59 PM

    “Pope Francis appealed to Mafiosi to renounce their quests for power and money….” Too much irony Frankie.

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    Mute John Ryan
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    Sep 15th 2018, 3:00 PM

    @Gaius Gracchus: The Church doesn’t like the competition…

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    Mute Rosa Lopez
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    Sep 15th 2018, 4:36 PM

    @Gaius Gracchus:

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    Mute Stephen Kearon
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:06 PM

    What about protecting children from the evil clutches of church paedophiles

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    Mute John Ryan
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:44 PM

    @Stephen Kearon: Looks like the mafia might be doing a better job at that than the church..

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    Mute B9xiRspG
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    Sep 15th 2018, 3:16 PM

    @Stephen Kearon: didn’t you hear? It was the devil!!

    Unbelievable!

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    Mute chris c
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    Sep 15th 2018, 2:58 PM

    lt was actually the vatican who set up the mafia many years ago to protect the vatican.

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    Mute Dermot Lane
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    Sep 15th 2018, 4:42 PM

    @chris c: no, it wasnt. The church are guilty of a lot of crimes but that’s not one of them.

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    Mute Rosa Lopez
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    Sep 15th 2018, 4:37 PM

    Probably he abused the wrong child.

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    Mute Harry Foley
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    Sep 15th 2018, 7:08 PM

    Couldn’t travel to Tuam for 800 poor souls makes you sick

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Sep 15th 2018, 11:52 PM

    Some might say that’s who is running the Vatican bank these days?

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    Mute Rachel Didleu
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    Sep 15th 2018, 6:45 PM

    No smoking guns in the Vatican……came across lovely old Oirish saying lately….
    Báist do leanbh féin I dtúis…..and then I’ll Papa gives an opportunity for its use…..he is really the gift that keeps on giving….Bless hymn
    .

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