Francis denounces Mafia at prayer vigil

Convert or go to hell, Pope Francis has warned members of Italy’s Mafia in an emotional address to victims of gang violence, writes Liz Dodd. Speaking at a prayer vigil at the Church of San Gregorio VII in Rome last week Francis said that gangsters’ “blood-stained money, blood-stained power” would not give them happiness.

He urged them to convert and stop doing evil, adding: “There is still time not to end up in Hell, which awaits you if you continue on this road. You had a father and a mother. Think of them, weep and convert.” The vigil, organised by the Italian anti-Mafia group Libera, has been held every year since 1996. It was the first time a pope attended. Francis put on vestments once worn by Fr Giuseppe Diana, an Italian priest killed by the Mafia in Naples in 1994.

* The Pope has asked Archbishop Giancarlo Maria Bregantini of Campobasso-Boiano, who has written extensively on organised crime, to write the meditations for the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum this coming Good Friday.