CONNECTICUT’S PAST HISTORY and THE PRESENT NEED: A Call for a Response to the Need for Housing for the Central American Children at the U.S. Border

Last week I got to thinkin'. . .Governor Malloy says that the Southbury facility is not adequate to the needs of the unaccompanied minors at our U.S. Border. There is what is being called “a humanitarian crisis” at the U.S. Border where over 52.000 children, mainly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, have taken refuge from the violence in their countries.

While the media describes the situation, not much emphasis is placed on the causes. Since some of the causes are due to U.S. policy it would seem to be incumbent on the U.S. to offer a response.

No matter what the causes, this situation demands less talk and discussion and more action.

Each state, including Connecticut, is being asked to offer temporary housing for these children.

Connecticut, like other states, has a history of open-hearted response to humanitarian situations like the present one and the human resources to respond.

CONNECTICUT’S PAST HISTORY OF REFUGEE SERVICES

Has everybody forgotten? Well, now there's a group of immigrant activists who are calling attention to the past history of Connecticut regarding previous refugees.

According to a NY Times article in January 1990:

Today, 8,200 Southeast Asian refugees live in Connecticut, three-quarters of the total of 11,000 refugees who have settled in the state in the last 15 years, Mr. Nguyen said, citing statistics from the United States Office of Refugee Resettlement.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/14/nyregion/for-refugees-from-southeast-asia-adapting-is-a-slow-road.html

Such is the track record of humanitarian response by Nutmeggers to a crisis resulting from U.S. Foreign Policy which many say led to a “pull out” from a ill-conceived war in South East Asia.

THE PRESENT SITUATION

Anyone aware of the news of the past few weeks has seen the reports:

So far this year, more than 52,000 children have been apprehended crossing the country's Southwest Border at the Rio Grande Valley, about twice the amount caught during the same time last year. Most of those children are coming from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and many are fleeing violence in their home countries.

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-immigration-reforms-20140703,0,626802.story

Someone brought to my attention that, legally speaking, the unaccompanied minors have not been declared refugees as were the Southeast Asian "Boat People". Well. let's get them declared "refugees" if that's what it takes to get a response similar to the one in 1990.   

CAUSES

Here are some of the rational that witnesses to the validity of declaring these young people "refugees". 

What some term a “humanitarian crisis” others call a “foreign policy crisis” due to a flawed Latin American Foreign Policy.

In addition, the situation at the border results from the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, legislation passed in 2008. According to a recent article in the NY Times:

It was one of the final pieces of legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush, a measure that passed without controversy, along with a pension bill and another one calling for national parks to be commemorated on quarters.

“This is a piece of legislation we’re very proud to sign,” a White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, told reporters on Dec. 23, 2008, as the president put his pen to the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, named for a 19th-century British abolitionist. “This program has been very effective around the world in trying to stop trafficking in persons.”

Now the legislation, enacted quietly during the transition to the Obama administration, is at the root of the potentially calamitous flow of unaccompanied minors to the nation’s southern border.

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/us/immigrant-surge-rooted-in-law-to-curb-child-trafficking.html?_r=0

As a result, some say, over the years since 2008, word of the consequences of the Wilburforce Act has reached Central America. And families, interpreting the law as “if we get our children into the U.S., they’ll be able to stay” thereby avoiding the consequences of the violence in their country, have been sending unaccompanied children to the U.S. Border in increasing numbers in recent years.

According to a Miami Herald report in March of this year:

A report issued in November by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) showed the sharp increase. Every fiscal year between 2004 and 2011, the report said, the number of children detained by immigration authorities averaged about 6,800. But apprehensions jumped to more than 13,000 children in fiscal year 2012 and to more than 24,000 in fiscal year 2013.

Up to 120 unaccompanied youths are arriving each day, and some estimates suggest that the annual number could soon reach 60,000, according to a Feb. 21 story in the Los Angeles Times.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/29/4027358/the-number-of-unaccompanied-minors.html#storylink=cpy

And reported estimates seem to indicate that the numbers will continue to grow:

Federal officials estimate as many as 90,000 children have entered the country illegally this year. Most are being held in Texas or elsewhere in the American Southwest. These sites cannot provide adequate care while the children, detained under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, are interviewed and processed for possible deportation back to their countries of origin.

More at: http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-ctm-ct-denies-illegal-migrant-children-southbur-20140715,0,114522.story

And

On March 7, 2013, President Obama signed the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), restoring this country’s most important tool to combat human trafficking.  This reauthorization reasserts the U.S. Government’s leadership role in the fight against modern-day slavery and was passed as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA), which strengthens protections for women threatened by domestic violence.

 See more at: http://www.endslaveryandtrafficking.org/trafficking-victims-protection-reauthorization-act#sthash.ROPy5i6B.dpuf

Now this year:

President Barack Obama is facing a clash with Democrats in Congress over proposals to water down a law intended to combat human trafficking in order to speed up the repatriation of unaccompanied children crossing the US southern border from Central America.

More at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/14/obama-democrats-border-crisis-wilberforce-law-amendment

“VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL AMERICA”

The media tends to suggest that the cause of the migration is the push of the violence created by the criminal nature of the people of these countries. 

An SOA Watch bulletin sheds light on error of the manner of thinking and lays responsibility for the border crisis at the feet of U.S. Foreign Policy in Latin America:

The heartbreaking stories emanating from the immigration detention centers near the border have rightly been making the news. However the U.S. media has largely ignored the real lessons from the increasing number of Unaccompanied Minors being detained near the U.S. border. This “humanitarian crisis” has not been caused by the criminal nature of the people of Central America, irresponsible parenting, or the clichéd pursuit of the “American Dream”. Children and their families are coming to the U.S. to survive. At its root, they are too often trying to escape the devastating consequences of past and present U.S. foreign policy in the region.

The number of children attempting to cross the border into the United States has risen dramatically in the last five years: In FY 2009, roughly 6,000 unaccompanied minors were detained near the border. Credible estimates project that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will detain as many as 74,000 unaccompanied minors by the end of FY 2014. Approximately 28% of the children detained this year are from Honduras, 24% from Guatemala, and 21% from El Salvador.

U.S. SECURITY FUNDING IN CENTRAL AMERICA for “DRUG WAR”

Since 2008, the U.S. has intensified the “drug war”, spending over $800 million in security aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador through the “Central American Regional Security Initiative” (CARSI) as well as millions more in bilateral military and police aid to each individual country. Yet Central America has faced increasing and extreme levels of violence during this time. The rule of law has deteriorated as a result of the battles between drug cartels as well as the corrupt and cartel-infiltrated state security forces. Extrajudicial executions, torture, violence against women, the targeting of grassroots and indigenous leaders, and other human rights violations have risen since the U.S. dramatically increased funding and training of Central American security forces, especially in post-coup Honduras.

By every conceivable measure, including the availability of drugs, mass incarceration, mass immigrant detention, and the ineffective use of tax money in the U.S.; homicide and violence rates, corruption, the overall power of drug cartels, economic activity, and migration rates in Central America – the "war on drugs" has been an abject and costly failure. For the sake of these detained children and their families, it is time for the U.S. government to take accountability for its past and current role in contributing to the root causes of migration from Central America

HONDURAS

The particularly severe increases in Honduran migration are a direct result of the June 28, 2009 SOA-graduate led coup, the abusive policies of the resulting Honduran regimes, and the shameful U.S. support for these corrupt governments that emerged after dubious elections in 2009 and 2013.

EL SALVADOR

Additional U.S. aid, even non-security aid for gang prevention, microcredit and other "economic development" programs, although well-meaning, amount to little more than putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. The U.S. should subscribe to the principle of "do no harm first" before attempting to solve the problems of others through increased military aid or small-scale economic development when the structural and political considerations of migratory root causes are far more determinative. For example, U.S. insistence on El Salvador opening up its new Family Agriculture Plan to huge agricultural multinationals like Monsanto in order to obtain Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) funding is not only outrageous, but more importantly, part of the problem.

More at: http://www.soaw.org/

POSSIBLE RESPONSES TO THE SITUATION

The resources for a response are the similar to those utilized in the Southeast Asian Refugee crisis: people of good will working together toward as solution.

CENSUS DATA QUICK FACTS

Among the total population of 3,596,080 in Connecticut [2013:http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/09000.html],

the 14.3 % of Connecticut population age 5 or older counted as Spanish-dominant population in the metropolitan areas of over 500,000 in Connecticut is 325,665. 

Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2010 American Community Survey Spanish-dominant population and proportion of total population for metropolitan areas with a total population 500,000 or more

Metropolitan area	Total population	Persons 5 or older	Spanish speakers 5 or older	% of Spanish-dominant speakers
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT MSA	918,714	861,668	118,034	13.7%
New Haven-Milford, CT MSA	862,989	814,466	95,392	11.7
Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT MSA	1,212,956	1,147,144	112,239	9.8%

Even extrapolating from that over age 5 demographic set, the number of adults in Connecticut whose language in Spanish reaches well over 2000 (the number of children the U.S. General Services Administration is seeking to resettle in Connecticut).  

The median income of the families in this population sampling may be low, and they may not have the means nor the space to house the children of Central America.

But, at the same time, families of more adequate means could offer housing to the children, and Spanish-speaking families could serve as a resource for language-interpretation for those families who would offer temporary shelter for the children.

The point of this is:

1.     There is what is being called “a humanitarian crisis” at the U.S. Border where over 52.000 children, mainly from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, have taken refuge from the violence in their countries.

2.     No matter what the causes, this situation demands less talk and discussion and more action.

3.     Each state, including Connecticut, is being asked to offer temporary housing for these children. It's heartening to see that the force of public opinion is forcing a rethinking of the ways Connecticut can respond to this need by considering using other State facilities for housing. 

4.     Connecticut, like other states, has a history of open-hearted response to humanitarian situations like the present one and the human resources to respond.

Pope Francis, the Mafia and the Vatican Bank: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the Use of Power

Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated.

                                                                                                                        –-Pope Francis, June 25, 2014 

He told the crowd: "This evil must be fought against, it must be pushed aside. We must say no to it."

He branded the 'Ndrangheta as the "adoration of evil and contempt of the common good" and said the Church would exert its full force in efforts to combat organised crime.

Source:   http://news.yahoo.com/mafiosi-excommunicated-pope-says-151122053.html

The sensation of this "informal excommunication" of the Sicilian mafia by Francis has now abated in the normal news cycle. But while it was “hot,” it was getting more publicity than the vindication of Galileo by John Paul II on November 4, 1992.

Despite it's not even being “latae sentitiae," the “excommunication” Francis forthrightly declared is being reported out of context. For instance, the media ignore that Francis had words for the mafioso earlier in March, 2014 [see March, 2014, in the timeline below].

And even the June confrontation of the mafioso by Francis is part of larger campaign for justice. In a larger world-wide context, Francis’ words for the mafia are a call to all institutions who use intimidation for the exercise of power, even the Church.

On the other hand, commentators haven’t picked up on the point of interest to most history buffs. Francis's condemnation of the mafia this month is but one small vignette of a long series of events stretching over the pontificate of at least five popes. These events reflect the love-hate relationship of the Vatican with those who would use the Instituto per le Opere di Religione, the formal name of the Vatican Bank, for money laundering by mafia and others.

I.     THE GOOD

THE GOOD WORKS OF THE IOR

At the outset, this “Spat” goes contrary to its normal attitude by making clear this is some good in all this. Despite the sordid history outlined in the chronology below, the history of the good works carried out through the Institute for the Works of Religion shows all is not so black. For instance, in July, 2012, one report states that $70 million dollars was donated to various causes:

The Vatican Bank, officially called the Institute for the Works of Religion, distributed its charitable funds among the Amazon Fund; the Pro-Orantibus Fund, which supports cloistered monasteries; the San Sergio Fund, which supports the Church in the former Soviet Union; and the Commission for Latin America, as well as other Catholic charities.

More at: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-bank-donated-70-million-to-charity-in-2012/

That being stated, we continue

II.     THE BAD

A CHRONOLOGY OF THE IOR and THE ROLE OF THE MAFIA

The second point can be put in perspective by a review of history of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione [IOR or Institute for Religious Works], the formal name of the Vatican Bank. One new report cites some of that history:

The Vatican Bank was established with a massive sum provided by the dictator Benito Mussolini in “payment” for the loss of Papal-owned territories 60 years earlier, when the inhabitants of those territories decided they would rather be part of a united Italy than continue to be ruled directly by the Pope.  Its first director, a brilliant but unscrupulous financier named Bernardino Nogara, used those funds and others to control a substantial portion of Italian economic life, including the ownership of several banks, munitions factories, and Italy’s largest manufacturer of the contraceptive devices that were officially banned by the Church.  The Church’s insatiable demand for funds, particularly to finance its attempts to influence European politics in the postwar era, led the Bank to seek even greater profits by plunging into organized crime: evading Italian currency laws, laundering Mafia drug profits, and serving as a front for fraudulent securities schemes.  

More at: http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/03/the-vatican-bank-then-and-now/

A little research yielded this sketchy timeline to illustrate the connection between the recent condemnation of the mafia by Francis and the machinations of the 

mafia with the Vatican Bank:

June 27, 1942 - Pius XII founds the Istituto per le Opere di Religione. The present website states:  Our mission is to serve the universal Church throughout the entire world, helping the Holy See, religious congregations and Catholic institutions in their works of charity and evangelization.

More about the purpose of the IOR and its ongoing process of reform started in 2012 [the Church hurries slowly, you know] in a letter at the home page of the IOR website [launched in June , 2012]:

https://www.ior.va/

Also from the Vatican point of view, the recent history of efforts at reform of the IOR:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_Works_of_Religion

1948: A Vatican official named Monsignor Edoardo Cippico was arrested and imprisoned for evading Italian currency controls through money-laundering operations at the Vatican Bank.

More at: http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/03/the-vatican-bank-then-and-now/

October 28, 1958: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli elected pope, taking the name John XXIII.

Since his prime objective was a more ecumenical, in the fullest sense of world-wide, resulting in Vatican II, there’s no indication found about John XXIII dealing with the Vatican Bank. There is, however, a connection with its future president:

In December 1959, he [Msgr. Paul Marcincus] returned to Rome to work in the office of the secretariat of state, by which time he had learned enough Italian to serve as an occasional interpreter for Pope John XXIII. 

Marcinkus was toserve as president of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989.

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marcinkus

1968: In 1968 Pope Paul VI selected as the Vatican’s chief financial advisor a man named Michele Sindona, a well-known Mafia banker who was later convicted of fraud, theft, perjury, and murder. In 1973, Sindona engineered the sale of the Banco Cattolica del Veneto, which had previously been owned by the Vatican, to the Banco Ambrosiano of Milan. 

More at: http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/03/the-vatican-bank-then-and-now/

1971 - 1989: American-Born President of the Vatican Bank

Cicero-born, Msgr. Paul Marcinkus was the president of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, also known as the Vatican Bank, from 1971 to 1989. As early as April 24, 1973, Marcinkus was questioned in his Vatican office by federal prosecutor William Aronwald and Bill Lynch, head of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the United States Department of Justice, about his involvement in the delivery of $14.5 million US worth of counterfeit bonds to the Vatican in July 1971, part of a total request of $950 million US worth stated in a letter on Vatican notepaper.

For those not remembering, there's more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marcinkus

"You can’t run a Church on Hail Marys", he [Marcinkas] used to say; he certainly ran the bank – and a good many quite unrelated companies as well, one of which made the contraceptive pill – with firm efficiency.

He also maintained close contacts with Sicilian Mafioso banker Michele Sindona – with whom he was fellow director of a bank in the Bahamas, and who in 1980 was sentenced in New York to 25 years’ imprisonment on 65 counts, including fraud – and the chairman of the  Banco Ambrosiano (the ‘Priests’ Bank’) Roberto Calvi, whose body was found in June 1982 hanging under Blackfriars Bridge.

 More at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1383867/Was-Pope-John-Paul-I-murdered-John-Julius-Norwichs-burning-question-.html

[See item below, 1982]

August 26, 1978: Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected Pope and takes the name John Paul I.

Luciani was known as a kindly man, but he was not a forgetful man.  Even if he had been, his memory might have been jogged when immediately after taking office he received a circular from Italy’s Office of Exchange Control warning of illegal activities involving transfers to the “foreign” Vatican Bank to violate the nation’s currency laws. According to David Yallop’s book In God’s Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, Luciani quickly ordered an investigation of the Vatican Bank, and on the evening of September 28, 1978, after only 33 days on the job, he reviewed final drafts of documents approving sweeping changes, including the immediate replacement of Marcinkus. The next morning, Luciani was found dead. The changes at the Vatican Bank did not happen.

More at: http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2011/03/the-vatican-bank-then-and-now/

September 27, 1978: John Paul I dies 33 days after election 

Many will be familiar with the conspiracy theories surrounding JP I's death:

In short, there was plenty of motive for murder; plenty of opportunity; and plenty of suspicious circumstances. That is all we can say. There is absolutely  no conclusive proof of anything untoward, and John Paul I may have died a perfectly natural death. 

Those wishing to know more are referred to two remarkable books: In God’s Name by David Yallop, who believes the worst, and A Thief in the Night by John Cornwell, for whom this is all just another baseless conspiracy theory. Both are the results of deep and meticulous research, yet they reach diametrically opposite conclusions. 

The mystery remains.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1383867/Was-Pope-John-Paul-I-murdered-John-Julius-Norwichs-burning-question-.html#ixzz35fz2Uw3s 

1982: The most infamous publicity surrounded revelations about the Vatican bank’s dealings with Milan’s Banco Ambrosiano, one of the most high-profile bank collapses in Italy’s history. The Vatican bank was Banco Ambrosiano’s main shareholder. After its demise in 1982, Banco Ambrosiano’s chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. Prosecutors in Rome concluded that he was killed by the Sicilian Mafia but no one has ever been convicted of his murder.

More at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3029390a-5c68-11e3-931e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35fNND7ii

As well as at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1383867/Was-Pope-John-Paul-I-murdered-John-Julius-Norwichs-burning-question-.html#ixzz35fwXFf8J 

Ocotober 16, 1978: Karol Wojtyla elected pope, taking the name John Paul II.

May, 1993:  During a visit to Sicily in May 1993, Pope John Paul II urged Roman Catholics, who make up the vast majority of Sicily's five million people, to rise up against the Mafia.
Mr. Coiro said the Pope's appeals were evidently viewed by the Mafia as breaching a kind of "non-belligerence accord" between Mafia and church. He said that in an apparent reprisal last September, the Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi, a priest in Palermo who was an outspoken opponent of organized crime, was shot and killed in what investigators believe was a Mafia operation.

More at: http://southernorderspage.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-reminder-of-what-happens-when-pope.html

And another retaliation is reported:

La Cosa Nostra didn't try to kill John Paul II — though Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca did try in 1981 — but it did apparently respond to his admonition by bombing several Roman churches a few months later, including the Basilica of St. John Lateran — the pope's home church, in his role as Bishop of Rome.

More at: http://theweek.com/article/index/263596/would-the-mafia-ever-order-a-hit-on-pope-francis

June 4, 2009: An AlterNet report cites:

The Vatican appears to have an enduring vocation for Italian political and financial scandal. Secrecy and intrigue were the order of the day when American archbishop Paul Marcinkus held sway in the Bastion of Nicholas V, the medieval tower housing the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican's central bank.

More at: 

http://www.alternet.org/story/140435/the_vatican's_dirty_secrets%3A_bribery,_money_laundering_and_mafia_connections

​June 12, 2012: An online new commentary states:

The Vatican Bank is under media fire as reports emerge that Italian prosecutors suspect it of laundering Sicilian mafia bosses’ riches.

​The Institute for Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank, has so far refused to disclose details of an account held by a priest in connection with a money laundering and fraud investigation.

​ More at​

http://rt.com/news/vatican-mafia-laundering-money-716/

June, 2013:  A news outlet, little noticed in the world media, reported: 

On June 28 this year, Italian police arrested a silver-haired priest, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, in Rome. The cleric, nicknamed Monsignor Cinquecento after the €500 bills he habitually carried around with him, was charged with fraud and corruption, together with a former secret service agent and a ­financial broker. All three were suspected of attempting to smuggle €20m by private plane across the border from Switzerland.

Prosecutors alleged that the priest, a former banker, was using the Institute for Religious Works – the formal name for the Vatican’s bank – to move money for businessmen based in the Naples region, widely regarded in Italy as a haven of organised crime. Worse still, Scarano (who, together with the other men, has denied any wrongdoing) had until only a month earlier been head of the accounting department at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the treasury of the Vatican.

​Read more: ​http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3029390a-5c68-11e3-931e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz35fNND7ii

October 1, 2013: Vatican Bank [IOR] opens its books for the first time, According to a Reuters report:

The IOR said that in 2012 it had a net profit of 86.6 million euro ($117.23 million), more than four times greater than the 20.2 million euro profit in 2011.

The report, whose figures were audited by KPMG, said the huge increase in net profit was due mainly favorable trading results and higher bond values.

It said 54.7 million euro of the profit was transferred to the budget of the Holy See to help the pope carry out the Church's mission around the world. It also revealed the extent of the IOR's holdings in gold, coins and other precious metals (41.3 million euros), that it had a stake in an Italian real estate company, and received two inheritance properties worth about 2 million euros in 2012.

The bank's stated aim is to hold and manage money for Vatican departments, orders of priests and nuns, Catholic institutions and related entities, clergy and Vatican employees.

 More at: http://news.yahoo.com/move-transparency-vatican-bank-issues-first-report-114416084.html

November 14, 2013: Money Laundering Crackdown

Pope Francis' crusade against corruption in the Catholic Church, including an overhaul of the scandal-scarred Vatican Bank, has put the new pontiff in the Italian mafia's crosshairs, according to two organized crime experts.

In May, the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Religious Works, issued its first-ever report on money laundering, an apparent attempt to improve

 its financial transparency.

The 64-page report details the Vatican's efforts to crack down on money laundering in  particular, though it made no mention of mafia connections. The report found six charges of "suspicious activity" within the past year.

More at: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/14/prosecutor-pope-faces-mafia-threat/

March 21, 2014:  Pope Francis takes part in the annual vigil in Rome where families whose members’ lives have been taken by mafia violence.

The Pope thanked the victims for their testimonies and expressed his solidarity with them. He asked them to never stop fighting against corruption. After his speech, he spent several minutes greeting some of them personally.

About 700 people attended the gathering, on behalf of more than 15,000 victims killed by the mafia.

At that time, he addressed his words to the mafia:  

"We pray for you to change. We are asking you, on our knees. It's for your own good. This life you live now will not give you pleasure, it will not give you joy, it will not give you happiness. The power, the money you have now, from dirty 

deeds, from many mafia crimes, this blood money, you can't take it with you to the next life. Change. You still have time to not end up in hell. That is what awaits you, if you continue down this path.”

See the three minute video of the actual context at

http://www.romereports.com/pg156189-pope-to-mafia-change-this-type-of-life-will-not-give-you-joy-or-happiness--en

June 25, 2014: Pope Francis’ condemnation of mafia mobsters and presence at the prayer vigil goes beyond the perpetrators themselves and was also intended as a message to the Church ranks, as well as organized crime [emphasis mine].  Some priests in southern Italy are still accused of turning a blind eye to the crimes of devout Roman Catholic mobsters, who contribute handsomely to Church coffers for the maintenance of churches and often place themselves at the head of religious parades in small towns. Father Don Ciotti, who is the head of the Libera organization, which combats organized crime and has organized the prayer vigil on an annual basis, stated that the Roman Catholic Church has not always given attention to the victims of the mafia and the presence of organized crime. However, many perceive the pontiff’s presence at the ceremony and stern warning as an extraordinary message to his priests in the south of Italy in encouraging them to choose a courageous path of opposition to the mafia.
Read more at http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/pope-francis-condemns-mafia/#77tIYPhbVXhB4zDm.99

The condemnation of the mafia by Francis, while nothing new, carries with it a number of implications apparently ignored by commentators. What’s new and not to be minimized is the risk of violence against him, not for just this “excommunication” statement, but for his whole approach in the reform of the Vatican Bank.

This is not just an “Italian Affair.” A corollary of the choice of Francis to attend this vigil at this time—on the 19^th annual event—can be seen in a context of papal calls to the world and Church about money and justice. True, attending the vigil in March, 2013, in Rome, Francis must have been moved by listening to the reading aloud of the names of 842 who have suffered violent deaths since 1893 at the hands of the mafia. The suffering of those families of victims in March, 2013, no doubt, prepared him to make an even bolder statement in Sibari in June, 2014.

III.         THE UGLY

SOME CORROLARIES:

WORLD-WIDE CONDEMNATION OF USE OF POWER

But the vision of Francis is more world-wide and his message is too. He is saying “Using power for violence is ‘excommunicable’! Such actions cut one off from the community of Jesus.” If the priests of Italy have turned a blind eye to wealthy mafia contributors to the maintenance of their churches, what of those in other parts of the First World who temper their messages to what will be palatable by their wealthy parishioners? The question that remains is whether the message of Francis about “excommunication” sinks in globally.

THE PARISH AND THE USE OF POWER   

And what of the Church’s own use of power to suppress discussion of topics people want to address in the Church? How many parishioners, moved by the treasure of Church social teaching, are met with the cautionary words of parish officials: “We wouldn’t want to get people upset with us, would we?”  And even social-justice-minded parish staff find themselves confronted by well-to-do parishioners who object to “too much of this social justice stuff” or “stick to the preaching the Gospel, Father!”

One wonders what would happen if the world’s population of Catholics—both conservative and progressive—might be moved to withhold the percentage of donations going to the Vatican Bank through their parishes. Could good people be upset to that extent at the injustice of “their” bank being used for laundering mafia money?  

THREAT TO THE POPE

Pope Francis’ statements against the mafia may be cause to fear a local threat on the pope. His courage in making statements like this has brought the threat of violence against his predecessors.

NOW WHAT?

No Eli Wallach’s Tuco teetering on a stool with rope around his neck as Clint Eastwood’s Blondie riding off into the sunset with the bags of treasure in his saddle bags.

The conclusion of this present epic makes one wonder how the early Church communities would have looked on all this. Perhaps the best conclusion is the one made by one commentator who put it this way:

Well, since we are talking about the church, here is the apostle Paul writing to his acolyte Timothy (1 Timothy 6:10): "For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows."

More at: http://theweek.com/article/index/263596/would-the-mafia-ever-order-a-hit-on-pope-francis