The Pope made this request today:

Whoa. Pope Frank has some pair. Taking on the big boys. There are so many ways to change the world. This would be a big one, but is the Pope singling out the Italian Mafia or organized crime in general; Russian, Columbian, Mexican, Chinese, Somolian, etc.?

It starts with an idea.

this guy is a dead man walking.

Ain't gonna happen.

I think some of the mafia members probably laughed and others where like "What does he know about my life?".

This reminded me of an real life event. As I myself had been to prison, I got friends also who do small time crimes and have felonies and such shit on them. So this group of guys from a sect comes up to my friend, who's like now 19, but since birth he's been in the orphanage. They start to try to brainwash him with their stories. If I remember right my friends words were like "If there was a fucking god, I'd wouldn't grow up in the orphanage and become like this! But have a family like every normal person." After that cops came up to us pretty angry about some shit that someone said on us, so they wanted us to leave. Again the sect guys go on them, so the cops were like "Go fuck your god!" Funny story.

Anyway, I'm not a religious guy. But seriously, how can you ask some person to stop doing something, if you don't know their life. We can all call criminals scum and pests, but there is a reason why people got caught up in that life. And it isn't like you see in the Goodfellas movie that you start up to work in the local cafe/bar or whatever that shit was there with the mob. Some people just didn't have no other choice...

I wonder how many Mafia members will stop making monetary donations to the church? I'm sure there are many big time donors who will cut off the $$$ thinking they will show the Pope what they think of his plea. "After all, we are not Communists."

The worst scum of the earth are those gangsters who wear white collars, sit in government/business building offices and are never indicted. I think the Pope should have been more specific and direct his accusations at them, it's too easy to just speak generically of the mafia, a concept which is usually associated only with the "blue collar" part of the organization.

...the white collar gangsters/politicians are the worst in organized crime, since the Pope's discourse was about the mafia, but if we consider other types of crime as well, then rapists/pedophiles are worse even than the mafia.

I have already said and I repeat, if the Pope really wants that people should repent, must do as in the 50s there was the automatic excommunication for anyone was a member of the Italian Communist Party, so it must be made clear that any member of a criminal organization whether it's a blue collar or a white collar will be automatically excommunicated and can no longer set foot in a church.

...and if a person is excommunicated and they repent, confess and turn back to the Lord are they re-communicated?

marycas, if repentance is sincere,ie if he hasn't repented only, for don't spend his life in prison or be killed by his cronies, then yes. But as "are better two hands are that act, that two hands that pray" must prove that he really regretted it.

Indeed, he's not even actually Argentinian. He may have grown up there but he was born in Southern Italy.

Either way what he wants and what this topic is about, is never going to happen.

He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His Mother was born in Argentina as well. It was his Father who was born in Italy. His family roots are in Piedmont on both sides of his family, though. And Piedmont is in the far north of Italy, not the south.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

That's a pretty powerful message and he comes off in a genuine manner.

Doesn't Argentina have a predominant Italian population/ancestry?

From Wiki:

The Italian population in Argentina is the second largest in the world, by numbers, outside of Italy, some 25 million people. Italians form a majority of the population of Argentina and neighboring Uruguay as up to two-third have some Italian background; among the Latin American countries, only Brazil has more people of Italian descent (28 million, approximately 15 percent of Brazil's total population).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography_of_Argentina

LOL they'll never change. It's been around for 800+ years and still going strong.

Either way the new Papa is Southern Italian or was born there, despite the way the way the Church and he want to claim he was "born in Flores B.A." when that's a lie...but the church has been lying since it's inception. The sex abuse thing that had been going on for awhile and lied about for a long time is just wrong and inexcusable.

The new Padre supported the kidnapping, torture, and murder of innocent civilians in the 70s during a dictatorship in Argentina.

But none of the popes (besides St. Peter) are innocent and the Vatican is the most corrupt place in the world.

The Peróns and many other Argentinian leaders have adopted certain Italian customs.

They invite people over for dinner, and then gave them a kiss on the cheek.

Let's just say that the "dinner guests" never were invited to eat anywhere again!