In praise of new Blessed Puglisi,
Pope Francis urges Mafiosi to stop
exploitation of others and to convert
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
VATICAN CITY, May 26, 2013 (AP) — Pope Francis paid tribute to a courageous priest murdered by the Sicilian Mafia as a martyr and urged mobsters on Sunday to abandon their evil ways, particularly the exploitation of people in trafficking rackets such as prostitution.
Francis issued his call to organized crime members to convert their hearts, a day after the beatification of the Rev. Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi in Palermo. The Vatican honored Puglisi as a martyr in the ceremony, 20 years after he was slain in the city by mobsters for defiantly preaching against the Mafia in a neighborhood where Cosa Nostra held sway.
Francis told a crowd in St. Peter's Square that the Mafia killed the Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi because he tried to keep youths from being recruited by mobsters.
Beatification is the last formal step before possible sainthood. As part of the process leading to beatification, church officials considered statements that convicted Mafiosi had given to investigators.
The mobsters told authorities that Cosa Nostra bosses had ordered Puglisi's murder because he had dared defy the Mafia by his preaching and work with young people. Mafia bosses convicted of ordering the slaying and are serving life sentences in prison.
The Pope didn't attend the beatification ceremony, which drew tens of thousands of people to an esplanade near Palermo's seaside. Instead, he used the traditional Sunday papal appearance to pilgrims, tourists and Romans in St. Peter's Square to hail Puglisi as a martyr and "an exemplary priest, especially dedicated" to serving young people.
"Educating young people according to the Gospel, he took them away from organized crime, and thus it (the Mafia) tried to defeat him by killing him," Francis said.
Puglisi was gunned down a few months after Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Sicily and angrily called on mobsters to "convert" their hearts. At the time the island was still shocked by the 1992 bomb blast assassinations by Cosa Nostra, two months apart, of Italy's top anti-Mafia magistrates.
"I think of the great pain suffered by men, women and even children, exploited by so many mafias," Francis said. He decried the crime syndicates for "making them do work that makes them slaves, prostitution."
"Behind this exploitation and slavery are the mafias," the Pope said. Francis, two months into his papacy, has branded human trafficking as one of the most terrible evils plaguing the world.
"They cannot make our brothers slaves," Francis said. "Let us pray that these Mafiosi and Mafiose convert to God," the pope said, using the Italian words to indicate both male and female mobsters. Women have increasingly been playing command roles in Italy's organized crime world as crackdowns see many of the male mobsters jailed for long terms, and have long helped syndicates by hiding fugitives in their homes and with other assistance.
Puglisi worked in one of Palermo's poorest and roughest neighborhoods, trying to give hope and options to young people, often recruited by Cosa Nostra for drug pushing, numbers running and other jobs in the mob's illicit activities. Francis has repeatedly said his vision of the Catholic church is a "poor church for the poor," and encouraged clergy to work with people on society's margins and avoid having the Church turn inwards onto itself.
Investigators say that along with drug trafficking, human trafficking, including in illegal immigrants to work clandestinely in agriculture or factories, and of young people from abroad for prostitution, has become one of the most profitable industries for organized crime.
Francis put his strategy of paying attention to faithful on the periphery into practice Sunday, choosing as his first parish to visit in Rome one so far on the city's outskirts that he took a helicopter from the Vatican, about 20 kilometers (13 miles) away, to arrive. [NB: Benedict XVI visited many parishes in the peripheries of Rome, as a matter of fact, not because of 'strategy', and always flew to them by helicopter because it makes more sense than going by car, especially as the Pope has to be back in the Vatican in time for Sunday Angelus.]
The pope is also bishop of Rome, and Francis spent much of the pastoral visit conversing casually with children in the front row who were making their first Communion at Mass celebrated by him.
Vatican Radio's English service was missing in action yesterday, for they did not bother to translate Pope Francis's unusual homily. Here is the Vatican bulletin on his pastoral visit yesterday to a Roman suburban parish.
The Pope's pastoral visit
to Prima Porta in Rome:
A homily becomes a catechism
May 26, 2013
At 8:30 this morning, Pope Francis lef the Vatican by helicopter to make a pastoral visit to the parish of Saints Elizabeth and Zachary in Valle Muricana (Prima Porta) in the northern sector of the Diocese of Rome.
On his arrival, the Pope met with the families of children who had been baptized during the year, as well as some sick parishioners, after which he heard eight confessions.
At 9:30, he celebrated Mass in the square facing the parish church. He was introduced by the parish priest, don Benoni Ambarus. The Pope replied to the tribute extemporaneously before starting the Mass:
Dear first sentinel, dear second sentinel, dear sentinels: I am pleased with what you told us just now - that the word 'periphery' has a negative sense as well as a positive sense. You know why? Because reality is better understood, not from the centers, but from the edges. It is better understood.
You also said that you must become sentinels, right? I thank you for this function, for the work of being sentinels. And I thank you for your welcome on this Feast of the Trinity.
Here with me I have two priests whom you know well - they are the two secretaries of the Pope, the Pope who is in the Vatican, yes? Today, it's the Bishop who has come here. ["...sono i due segretari del Papa, il Papa che è in Vaticano, eh? Oggi è venuto il Vescovo qui". Very strange remarks. He was obviously referring to Monsignors Gaenswein and Xuereb. But why the subsequent remarks about 'the Pope who is in the Vatican' and 'today, it is the Bishop who has come here'?]
These two are very good workers. One of them, Padre Alfred (Xuereb), marks today the anniversary of his ordination as a priest - 29 years ago. Let us applaud him! Let us pray for him and ask God to give him at least another 29 years, right? Now, let us begin the Mass, in a spirit of piety, in silence, praying altogether for everyone.
During the Mass, the Pope would administer First Communion to 16 children and also give communion to 28 others who had their first communion in previous Sundays. He addressed his informal homily to these children.
Your parish priest, with his words, reminded me of a beautiful thing about Our Lady. When, shortly after she received the announcement that she would be the mother of Jesus, she also learned that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant, the Gospel tells us "she went in haste' to visit her.
She did not wait. She did not say, "Now that I am pregnant myself, I must take care of my own health. My cousin will have friends who will help her". No, she felt something, and "left in haste".
It is beautiful to think this about Our Lady, our mother, who goes forth in haste because within her she feels she must help. She is going to help her cousin, not to boast to her, "Listen, now I give the orders, because I am the Mother of God". No, she did not do that. She went to help. And that is the way it always is with Our Lady.
She is our mother, who always comes in haste when we need her. It would be nice to add to the litany to Our Lady, "Our Lady who comes in haste to help us, pray for us". That is beautiful, yes? Because she always comes in haste. She never forgets her children.
And when her children are in difficulty, when they need something and invoke her, she comes in haste. This gives us security, the certainty of having a mother near us, always at our side. One walks better in life when we have our mother nearby.
Let us think of this grace from Our Lady, this grace she gives us of being near us, without making us wait. Always. She is there - we can count on this - to help us. Our Lady who comes in haste for us.
Our Lady also helps us to understand God well, Jesus, to understand well the life of Jesus, the life of God. To understand what the Lord is, why he is the Lord, who God is.
To you children, I ask: Who among you know who God is? Raise your hands, tell me!
All right, God is the Creator of the earth. And how many Gods are there? One? But I was told there are three: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. How can we explain this? Is there one God or are there three? There is only one God. One!
But how can we explain that there is the Father, there is the Son and there is the Holy Spirit...Louder, louder!...All right, that is correct. They are three in one. Three persons in one God. What does the Father do? The Father is the beginning, the Father who created everything, he created us.
What does the Son do? Who can tell me what Jesus does?... He loves us. Yes, and what more? He brings the Word of God. He came to teach us the Word of God. That is very good!... And then? What did Jesus do on earth? He saved us! Jesus came to give his life for us.
The Father created the world. Jesus saves us. And what does the Holy Spirit do? He loves us. He gives you love.
Now, all the children together: the Father creates everything, he creates the world. Jesus saves us. And the Holy Spirit? He loves us. That is Christian life: to speak with the Father, to speak with the Son, to speak with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus saved us, but he also walks with us in life. Is this true? How does he walk with us? What does he do when he walks with us in life? That's a difficult question. The one who can answer wins the derby!
What does Jesus do when he walks with us? Louder!... First, he helps us. He leads us. Very good! He walks with us, he helps us, he leads us, he teaches us how to go forward. And he also gives us the strength to go on walking. Is that true? He sustains us. Very well. In our difficulties, right? Even in our homework from school!
He sustains us, he helps us, he leads us, he supports us. That is how Jesus is always with us. Very good. But listen, Jesus also gives us strength. How does he give us strength.>You must know how he makes us strong... Louder, I can't hear you... He comes to us!
But when you say, "We receive communion" - how can a piece of bread give so much strength? Is that not just bread? That which is on the altar - is it bread or not? It seems to be bread. But it is not really bread. Then what is it? It is the Body of Christ. Christ comes to our heart.
So let us all think about this: God gave us life, Jesus gave us salvation, he accompanies us, he leads us, he sustains us, he teaches us. And the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit give us? He loves us. He gives us love.
Let us think of God in this way, and let us ask Our Lady, Our Lady who is our mother, who always comes in haste to help us, that she teach us well what God is: what the Father is, what the Son is, what the Holy Spirit is. Let it be so.
Too bad I cannot find any appropriate photos of Pope Francis giving this impromptu catechism. Admirable and quite endearing!
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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/05/2013 02:14]