Vatican wants to revive church's role in fighting the Mafia

c. 2012 Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Vatican officials traveled this week to the island of
Sicily, the heartland of the Mafia, to promote the church's role in fighting
organized crime.

The Vatican says it wants to show that the best way to respond to the
Mafia is through the promotion of a "culture of dialogue and legality."

The "Courtyard of the Gentiles," a Vatican-sponsored initiative aimed at
bridging the gap between Christian and secular culture, organized the
two-day event in Palermo, Sicily's main town.

The agenda included a speech by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of
the Pontifical Council for Culture, and a roundtable with priests,
prosecutors and Mafia experts.

The conference ended Friday night (March 30) with an interfaith festival
on the steps of Palermo's cathedral, organized by the grassroots anti-Mafia
movement "Addio Pizzo."

The Catholic Church in Italy has often been accused of being too timid
towards the Mafia.

Event organizer Bishop Antonino Raspanti admitted that the church "has not
condemned strongly enough," the mafia in the past. But "things have
changed," he said, and there is no doubt that the "Mafia is anti-human and
anti-religious."