Mafia excommunications split Italian church

by our Rome correspondent
IN the latest Italian Church move against Mafia expansion, the Pope may be asked to intervene in a row between Italy's Episcopal Conference and parish priests in the peninsula's worst crime-ridden zones.
Last week, a meeting of 220 bishops in the Vatican proposed mass excommunication orders for mafiosi. But in a wave of adverse reaction, parish priests in Naples and Sicily claim denial of the sacraments would be impossible because even in confession, Mafia members did not admit their affiliation to the international crime ring.
In statements issued at the weekend, they stress that the Mafia "is not Archbishop Lefebvre". Because of the nature of the organisation, priests never know for sure who belong to it and so the excommunications en bloc proposed "seem senseless".
They cite similar anti-Mafia attempts by the Church in Sicily in the 1950s but no priest is on record as refusing the sacraments to suspects. A further excommunication threat seven years ago has also failed to curb ever increasing violence and Mafia infiltration of Italy's political and business life.
One bishop is backing the priests in their call for greater "pastoral" efforts as well as canonical penalties. Mgr Antonio Riboldi, 66 year old Bishop of Acerra near Naples, who recently escaped an attempt on his life, said 40 priests in his diocese were already refusing requiem masses for known mafiosi. "But it is not enough," he added.