God father | How Pope Francis stood up to the Italian mafia and their “blood-stained power”
Catholicism is deeply ingrained in the country, where organised crime groups hold significant influence.
Pope Francis excommunicated the mafia as he clamped down on organised crime groups in Italy from associating themselves with the Catholic church.
Catholicism is deeply ingrained in the country, where organised crime groups hold significant influence, both of which are rooted in family and tradition.
He publicly excommunicated the mafia from the church during a visit to Calabria in Southern Italy in 2014.
The territory is dominated by the ‘Ndragheta, one of Italy’s three main organised crime groups, which also includes the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra, who, according to The United Nations, have a combined annual turnover of an estimated €116bn.
During the same year, he also met with hundreds of victims' relatives in Rome as part of a day of commemoration held by anti-mafia organisation Libera.
In his address, he warned organised crime bosses that they would end up in hell if they didn’t give up their lives of "bloodstained money” and “blood-stained power".
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"There is still time to avoid ending up in hell. That is what is waiting for you if you continue on this path," he said. "You have had a father and a mother. Think of them. Cry a little and convert."
"This life that you live now will not give you happiness. The power and money that you have now from many dirty dealings, from many mafia crimes, is bloodstained money, is bloodstained power, you cannot bring them with you to the next life."
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"I feel that I cannot conclude without saying a word to the protagonists who are absent today the men and women mafiosi, please change your lives. Convert yourselves. Stop doing evil.”
The 88-year-old so strongly opposed the Mafia ‘appropriating’ Catholicism that the Vatican set up a department dedicated to disassociating the image of the Virgin Mary from organised crime.
Pope Francis said that the move would free the Madonna from “superstructures, powers or conditioning that does not correspond to the Gospel criteria of justice, liberty, honesty, and solidarity.”
Sergio Nazzaro, an Italian adviser to the Parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission, said the Mafia “always wanted to appropriate religious symbols, either out of their faith or to claim a social consensus.”
The ‘Ndrangheta have used the Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Polsi, a Catholic shrine in the Calabrian mountains, to host meetings, so “they could show themselves before the people and say they are the church in their own way,” Nazzaro told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
“The strong position of the Catholic Church is also a very powerful signal against the mafia itself, so they can no longer use the Catholic religion for their illicit purposes,” he explained.
“Religion is very important in Italy, especially in South Italy. These people [the mafiosi] are also believers and connected to tradition, so they mould the church to their power.
“They don’t just invade the economy, business and drug market, they also invade religion.”
The Argentinian pope who assumed papal office in 2013 also began the process of making a judge, who was murdered in 1990, a saint.
Rosario Livatino was shot dead by Stidda, a rival of the Cosa Nostra, and made a martyr in 2020, bringing him one step closer to sainthood.
His condemnation of Italy’s organised crime groups also trickled down into other leaders in the church.
In 2021, the archbishop Monsignor Domenico Battaglia condemned the Camorra, which is led by Kinahan ally Raffaele Imperiale.
"They are killing Naples. The Camorra and graft are killing it, with the violence and cruelty of those who have forgotten they are human beings,” Battaglia said following a spate of murders.
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"To the men of the Camorra, to the corrupt and those in collusion with criminality, I say: become human beings again, convert.”
Battaglia further added that he would welcome anyone who wanted to change their ways.
It came following remarks from the Pope, who said their “culture of death” was contrary to their Christian beliefs.
“Saint John Paul II denounced their ‘culture of death,’ and Benedict XVI condemned them as ‘ways of death, ’” he said, referencing his two predecessors.
“These structures of sin, mafia structures, contrary to Christ’s Gospel, exchange faith with idolatry.”
Last July, Raffaele Imperiale was jailed for 15 years after he was extradited to Italy from Dubai, where he had been overseeing an international cocaine trafficking ring.
Imperiale agreed to be a State witness and gave extensive details of his drug business and criminal associates to the police.
The Camorra gang boss was a guest at Kinahan’s wedding in Dubai, but is expected to spill his former friend's secrets as Gardai are in a queue of international law enforcement agencies waiting to speak to him.
