Sicily celebrated the beatification of
Father Giuseppe Puglisi on Saturday, and Pope Francis used it as an
occasion to pray for the conversion of the Mafia, reports the Catholic
News Agency. After he recited the Angelus on May 25, Pope Francis noted that F. Puglisi – a priest who was killed in 1993 by the Mafia – was beatified in Palermo on Saturday.
“Don Puglisi was an exemplary priest, devoted especially to youth ministry. He was teaching children according to the gospel and taking them out of the mob, and so they tried to defeat him and killed him. In reality, though, it is he that won, with Christ Risen,” the Pope told the crowd in St Peter’s Square.
These gangs “cause so much pain to men, women and even to children,” he said, mentioning prostitution as one type of slavery or social pressure used by the mafia.
Pope Francis urged the faithful in the square to “pray for these gangsters so that they convert.”
The murder of Fr Puglisi was a turning point for the Church in how it dealt with the Mafia.
Blessed Puglisi pursued a course of winning people away from the influence of the mob, as opposed to a protest model of resistance, which was more common among clergy at the time.