Pope: No More Mafia Worship at Easter

Easter processions in southern Italy are used to pausing the statues of the saints to honor local Mafiosi holed up in their houses. No more, says Pope Francis.

ROME — Last July, when the Catholic parishioners of Oppido Mamertina in Calabria dusted off the giant gilded statue of the Madonna delle Grazie for a saint’s day procession through the village streets, they did what they had done for years. They stopped in front of the house where 82-year-old Giuseppe Mazzagatti, a ‘Ndrangheta crime boss, was serving a life sentence on house arrest, to pay an unholy homage to a man been implicated in lethal crimes that have crippled the region. Videos of the procession show young men carrying the statue applauding in front of their idol’s home.

The act might have gone unnoticed, but a few weeks later, Pope Francis visited the area and was told of the practice by a regional bishop who found it “reprehensible.” Soon news of similar practices across Calabria in towns like San Procopio and Scido spread to the Holy See. The fact that the local cops and the priests of the dioceses led the processions made them even worse. 

The Pope used the examples as an opportunity to tell mobsters they could no longer hide behind their faith. Instead, he said, they are no longer welcome in the church.  “The ‘Ndrangheta is this: worship of evil and contempt for the common good. This evil must be fought until it goes away, you have to say no,” Francis told the local people. “Those who are not in this path of good, like the mafia, these are not in communion with God, are excommunicated."

Francis first took up the anti-organized crime cause in March 2014 when he held a ceremony in Rome during which he listened to the names of more than 800 men, women and children known to have been killed by mafia activity.

“The life that you are living now will not give you pleasure or joy,” he said then. “The power and money you have now from dirty business, and from mafia crimes, is blood-stained money, it is blood-stained power, and you won’t be able to take it to the after world. Repent. There’s still time to not end up in Hell, which is what awaits you if you continue on this path.”

Two weeks ago, the pope also met with people affected by organized crime when he visited the slums of Scampia outside of Naples. which is the epicenter for the Camorra crime syndicate’s heroin business.  There he likened the corruption of organized crime to “the stench of a corpse.”

The pope’s words have been taken to mean that stopping religious parades in front of known criminals’ homes is no longer an acceptable practice, even if the bosses are devout and repentant. And as Holy Week kicks off, dioceses across Italy’s criminal heartland are taking heed and vowing not to allow Easter processions to linger for the lawless.

“The power and money you have now from dirty business, and from mafia crimes, is blood-stained money, it is blood-stained power.”

“We need to stop making the statues protagonists in the criminal organization,” Luigi Renzo, the archbishop of Mileto-Tropea-Nicotera, declared on Palm Sunday.

To keep his word, Renzo has announced that he will divert the Holy Week procession entirely to avoid any known crime boss houses, promising that the statue from his church will stop only in front of the local hospital where he will give a blessing. But it won’t be easy. 

Renzo told The Daily Beast by telephone that his edicts are not being well received by everyone in the parish. “There are many people whose lives have been ruined by the ‘Ndrangheta,” he said. “But there are many others who couldn’t live without the organization. They have always been welcome in the church, but the Holy Father has changed that.”

Renzo says he told his parishioners to have courage to accept what is apparently a drastic change in the way many local dioceses in the deep south of Italy deal with known criminals. In February, Renzo and local bishops in Calabria met to adopt a set of regulations dealing with how the church must gradually change to turn its back on those known to be in organized crime, rather than allowing them forgiveness, which gives the impression they are allowed to hide behind their faith.

In Oppido Mamertina, Bishop Francesco Milito has also published a guide for local parishes on how to get through Holy Week without the usual practice of pausing the procession of the Madonna in front of known criminals’ houses. Last July, he defended his churchmen, telling local reporters that the priests don’t always know what’s going on in the procession, and that those who carry the saint are the strongest in body, not necessarily in faith. The guide, which was published online, advises priests not to give in to intimidation, and suggests that the best option for certain parishes is to “return the statues to the church using the shortest, most direct route possible.” 

Milito says stopping the practice of pausing the saints is only a small step to fight organized crime. “It is a gesture of caution, an invitation to reflection and silence,” he told his parishers on Palm Sunday. “Because the good of all and the serenity of mind sometimes require immediate sacrifices.”

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Taken from: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/31/the-mafia-s-blood-stained-stations-of-the-cross.html

Pope Francis set to rile Turkey by recalling the Armenian genocide

  

By Inés San Martín

Vatican correspondent March 30, 2015
                       

ROME — One week after Easter Sunday, Pope Francis is scheduled to celebrate a service in the Armenian Catholic rite to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a mass killing of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century that the pontiff defined two years ago as the “first genocide of the modern era.”

In a time of mounting anti-Christian violence in various corners of the Middle East, the pope’s act is likely to take on more than merely historical interest.

The April 12 papal liturgy is part of a broader campaign by Armenians to keep the memory of their suffering alive, which will feature the ringing of bells in Armenian churches around the world on April 23 at 19:15 (7:15 p.m.), the hour chosen to symbolically recall the year 1915. Bells will sound everywhere but Turkey, where the small number of churches still in operation will remain silent.

Francis has long been aware of the calamity that befell Turkey’s Armenian minority, having led an ecumenical service of remembrance in Buenos Aires in 2006.

“Today we come to pray for this people to whom human rights still don’t apply,” then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said on that occasion. He called for “the end of the empire’s silence,” referring to the Ottomans and their successors in today’s Turkey, saying that acknowledging what had happened would “bring peace to the Armenian people.”

Scholars believe that 1 million to 1.5 million Armenians died as a result of efforts to drive Armenians and other minorities from their homelands in present-day Turkey after World War I. It’s often acknowledged as the first genocide of the 20th century, and a forerunner to later atrocities such as those committed by Nazi Germany and Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.

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Taken from: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/03/30/pope-francis-set-to-rile-turkey-by-recalling-the-armenian-genocide/

Obama to host Pope Francis on September 23

                     

        

Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama will host Pope Francis at the White House on September 23, accepting an invitation extended during talks at the Vatican last year.

The White House said the president and the pope will continue a dialogue about poverty, the environment, immigration and promoting religious freedom.

"The president looks forward to continuing this conversation with the Holy Father during his first visit to the United States as pope," a statement said.

The 78-year-old leader of the world's Roman Catholics confirmed late last year that he would visit the United States to take part in a Catholic Church congress in Philadelphia.

During the trip, he will also address the United Nations in New York and become the first pontiff to address the US Congress.

Obama and Francis met for the first time at the Vatican in March last year in talks clouded by disagreements over provisions for contraception included in the US leader's landmark health care reforms.

Obama has regularly spoken of his admiration for Francis, repeatedly praising the pontiff for his compassion and modesty.

"As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than two thousand years -– that in each other we see the face of God," Obama said last year.

Francis is also widely credited with helping to kickstart the secret diplomacy between Cuba and the United States which culminated with the two Cold War rivals declaring a historic rapprochement last year.

According to a Vatican statement, Francis wrote letters to US and Cuban leaders and "invited them to resolve humanitarian questions of common interest, including the situation of certain prisoners, in order to initiate a new phase in relations between the two parties."

US and Cuban representatives later met in the Vatican as the dialogue gathered pace. The Vatican was the only outside government to participate in the discussions.

Confirmation of the meeting comes with Pope Francis's popularity amongst Americans soaring according to recent polls.

A survey by the Pew Research Center released earlier this month showed that 90 percent of Catholic Americans thought well of the pontiff, including 57 percent who held a "very favorable" view of him.

Among Americans of all faiths, 70 percent held a favorable view of the Argentinian-born pope -- the highest level since his papacy began in March 2013.

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Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-host-pope-francis-september-23-143721562.html

Pope Francis attacks 'throw-away' economic globalization

            

                                                                                                            

By James Mackenzie

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Francis launched a fresh attack on economic injustice on Saturday, condemning the "throw-away culture" of globalization and calling for new ways of thinking about poverty, welfare, employment and society.

In a speech to the association of Italian cooperative movements, he pointed to the "dizzying rise in unemployment" and the problems that existing welfare systems had in meeting healthcare needs.

For those living "at the existential margins" the current social and political system "seems fatally destined to suffocate hope and increase risks and threats," he said.

The Argentinian-born pope, who has often criticized orthodox market economics for fostering unfairness and inequality, said people were forced to work long hours, sometimes in the black economy, for a few hundred euros a month because they were seen as easily replaceable.

"'You don't like it? Go home then'. What can you do in a world that works like this? Because there's a queue of people looking for work. If you don't like it, someone else will," he said in an unscripted change from the text of his speech.

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"It's hunger, hunger that makes us accept what they give us," he said.

His remarks have a special resonance in Italy, where unemployment, particularly among young people, is running at record levels after years of economic recession.

The cooperative movement in Italy, whose roots go back to 19th century workers' associations, have long had close ties to the Catholic Church, with credit services, agricultural and building co-ops forming an important part of the overall economy.

Pope Francis said they could help find new models and methods that could be an alternative model to the "throw-away culture created by the powers that control the economic and financial policies of the globalized world."

Perhaps mindful of a wide-ranging corruption scandal linked to some cooperatives in Rome last year, he attacked those who "prostitute the cooperative name".

But his overall message was that economic rationale had to be secondary to the wider needs of human society.

"When money becomes an idol, it commands the choices of man. And thus it ruins man and condemns him. It makes him a slave," he said.

"Money at the service of life can be managed in the right way by cooperatives, on condition that it is a real cooperative where capital does not have command over men but men over capital," he said.

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-francis-attacks-throw-away-economic-globalization-142552599.html