Pope Francis Blasts Mafia in Naples
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Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images(NAPLES, Italy) — Pope Francis blasted the “stink of corruption” on Saturday while discussing organized crime.
Francis made the remarks as he travelled to the crime-ridden southern Italian city of Naples to deliver a frank plea to its citizens: stop colluding with the mafia.
Francis told the thousands assembled in Naples’ Plebiscite Square to strongly resist organizations that exploit and corrupt, to react against what he called the “cynical commerce of drugs and other crimes.”
Much of the economy of the southern Italian city has long been in the hands of the Camorra crime clans.
Later, Francis made his way through ecstatic crowds to a prison in the city center where he shared a meal prepared by inmates. Among those present at the dinner were gay, transgender and HIV positive prisoners.
The pope told the prisoners they are too often held in humiliating conditions that lead to feeling let down, faithless and abandoned, but he urged them to have faith.
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