Italy: Naples Under the Yoke of the Mafia

In a letter published on the diocesan website on October 12, 2021, the prelate urges “all institutions, civil society, men and women of good will, my Neapolitan Church” to shake off their indifference and resignation in the face of “the Camorra and the underworld who kill with violence and cruelty those who have forgotten that they are human!”

“The trail of blood that runs through the city these days, causing the death of young lives, terror and anguish in entire neighborhoods, streets, families, cannot leave us indifferent!” he exclaims.

“To the men of the Camorra, to the corrupt, and to those who collude with crime,” the Archbishop of Naples urges: “Become human again! Convert! Your bishop will not hesitate to welcome and accompany the steps of conversion and human rebirth of those who will listen to their conscience and the words of the Gospel, laying down their arms and embarking on paths of cooperation with justice!”

“To the many mothers in Naples, especially those who live in family situations and in difficult neighborhoods,” Archbishop Battaglia expressly asks: “be an instrument of conversion for your children, help your families to repent, be once again a womb that begets life and not accomplices in the ways of death!”

On October 13, the archbishop did not hesitate to convene “the various representatives of civil society and of the Church to put the question of education at the center, starting with the youngest children and their families, and in focusing on prevention.”

On October 14, writes Arcgbishop Battaglia, “I will be in Ponticelli, in one of the districts most injured by the escalation of the Camorra, with a delegation of young people from the archdiocese to meet the children and young people of the deanery, in a moment of mutual listening, discussion, and sharing.”

- In fact, after bloody clashes between rival Camorra clans, the police recorded a dozen attacks, mainly in the Ponticelli neighborhood.

“A shining example of a humble, poor, disinterested life, a copy of the divine Master”

Focusing on the evils which plague society, Pope Pius XI wrote in 1937: “the most efficacious means of apostolate among the poor and lowly is the priest's example, the practice of all those sacerdotal virtues which We have described in Our Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii.”

“Especially needful, however, for the present situation is the shining example of a life which is humble, poor and disinterested, in imitation of a Divine Master Who could say to the world with divine simplicity: “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.”

“A priest who is really poor and disinterested in the Gospel sense may work among his flock marvels recalling a Saint Vincent de Paul, a Cure of Ars, a Cottolengo, a Don Bosco and so many others” (Pius XI, Divini redemptoris, March 19, 1937).