Convert the gangsters
Pope Francis assumed a great risk to his personal safety when he issued a strong condemnation of organised crime at a Mass in southern Italy in June. The pope was speaking in the region of Calabria, a stronghold of the ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate which is said to be even more powerful and richer than the Sicilian mafia. So when he declared these criminals “excommunicated”, to the loud applause of the 250,000 people at the Mass, the pope — and with that the Catholic Church — made powerful enemies.
Pope Francis uses incense as he celebrates a Mass attended by 250,000 people in Sibari, in Italy’s Calabria region. During his homily, the pope said “mafiosi” are not in communion with God and are excommunicated. The Calabria region is home of t he ‘Ndrangheta crime organization, known for drug trafficking. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The pope courageously said what needed to be explicitly stated, and thereby offered those suffering under the weight of crime the Church’s solidarity and encouragement.
What goes for the ‘Ndrangheta goes for all organised crime. When Pope Francis defined the Calabrian syndicate as representing “the adoration of evil and contempt for the common good”, he was also addressing the crime syndicates of Palermo and New York, of Lagos and Hong Kong, Moscow, Juárez, São Paulo, Bangkok and throughout the world.
And he also addressed the gangs that terrorise the communities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, East London, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth and throughout South Africa.
To all of these, from the Gucci-suited godfathers to the gun-wielding street gangsters, Pope Francis addressed these words: “Those who follow the path of evil, like the mafiosi do, are not in communion with God; they are excommunicated!”
He made it clear that personal piety does not compensate for an evil lifestyle. Even if the mob families or gangsters go to Mass and decorate their homes and lairs with religious images and items, he said, they have cut themselves off from communion with the Church and with God. They cannot be regarded as Catholics in good standing, and this may compromise their access to certain sacraments.
The secular media, not versed in the finer points of canon law, misunderstood the pope’s words as representing a formal decree of excommunication, akin to an ayatollah’s fatwa (though, obviously, much more welcome).
The pope has no power to issue a formal collective excommunication except through a due process involving an official declaration by the Church of an interdict being placed upon a guilty party. Such excommunications are known as ferendae sententiae (“sentence to be passed”) and usually involve matters of theology or dogma.
The excommunication the pope referred to is the automatic kind, known in canon law as latae sententiae (“sentence passed”). It means that by having committed certain serious transgressions, such as involvement in an abortion or, according to Pope Francis, involvement in organised crime, one has incurred automatic excommunication by reason of the offence itself and without the intervention of any ecclesiastical judge.
To lift a ferendae sententiae excommunication requires a process of appeals and judgment; to lift a latae sententiae excommunication it is usually enough to make a confession and to renounce the sin or lifestyle which incurred the automatic excommunication in the first place.
This means that there is hope for gangsters and mobsters: salvation and everlasting life is available to them if they convert from their life of iniquity.
The faithful can play a part in that by being agents in their conversion, in communities and in correctional facilities.
Our photo on the front-page of this edition shows prison visitors at Leeuwkop jail in Gauteng. These commendable missionaries work among people who by their evil acts separated themselves from God, and try to show them a way back to him.
The Southern Cross contributes to this by supplying prison chaplains with weekly issues of the newspaper for distribution among prisoners. Reportedly, these are sought-after items.
In their mission, the prison ministers may invoke Pope Francis’ message: “When instead of adoring the Lord one substitutes the adoration of money, one opens the path to sin, personal interests and exploitation.”
The message prison ministers give to the inmates of jails is the same the Church has to amplify to gangsters: when you persist in doing evil, you separate yourself from God. Turn away from your life of evil and walk in the light of the Lord — before it is too late.
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