A Saint, a
Martyr, and for Rome’s financial and political concerns, ignored and
even forgotten by the Vatican!
September 15, 1993, was Father Giuseppe Puglisi's
fifty-sixth birthday. The parish priest of San Gaetano in the poor
Brancaccio section of Palermo, Sicily, spent the day in a round of
pastoral duties. Known to everyone as Padre "Pino," he performed two
weddings, sat in at a meeting, had a conference with parents who were to
have their babies baptized, and then attended a small birthday
celebration in his honor with friends. Returning home at 8:20 p.m., he
had just gotten out of his car when a man stepped from the shadows, put
a gun with a silencer to the priest's head, and shot him to death. Four
years later, the hit man was arrested. A low-level Mafioso, he told the
police that Puglisi had seen him approaching and said, "I was expecting
you, I forgive you."
For years, Puglisi had been an outspoken critic of the Mafia. He
organized groups in his parish to combat them, and he aided those who
fought them in other parts of the city. He refused their monies when
offered for the traditional feast day celebrations, and would not allow
the "men of honor" to march at the head of religious processions. He
instructed young children to hold the Mafia in contempt. When bribes
were required to hasten civic improvements, he would denounce those who
demanded them, and he railed against their influence on a city
government that seemed incapable of providing a middle school or of
putting in sewers, although a quarter of Brancaccio's residents had high
levels of viral hepatitis.
In three years Puglisi, with little support from the Palermo
archdiocese, began to change his parishioners' mentality, which was
conditioned by fear, passivity and imposed silence. In his sermons,
Puglisi pleaded with parishioners to give some leads to authorities
about the Mafia's illicit activities in Brancacio, even if they could
not actually name names -- a revolutionary initiative in a Palermo
parish.
For the first time they began to realize that life could be more than
violence, humiliation and brutality. Puglisi's social work,
conscience-building and courage instilled in the people of Brancaccio
life options that did not include those offered by the Mafia's "value
system."
Observers of the Sicilian church, however, note that there are
relatively few anti-Mafia priests in the archdiocese, "in word and
deed." Those who continue in Puglisi's footsteps now know they risk
their lives.
Puglisi's murder shocked the church throughout Italy. There was an
immediate call by eight priests in Palermo for the pope to travel to
Palermo -- a short flight from Rome -- to be present at his funeral. The
pope, however, was scheduled to be in Tuscany on that date.
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The archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, before the funeral Mass, carefully avoided indicating the Mafia by name as the probable suspects in Puglisi's murder, although most in the Sicilian church had no doubt about Cosa Nostra's involvement. In one interview, when pronouncing its name, he qualified his statement by saying, "the Mafia, or however you would like to name it."
On another occasion (a few hours after the murder) the cardinal said that "Father Puglisi was a priest who disturbed people. It is difficult for me to say how these people who he disturbed should be called. One thing is certain though, Father Puglisi really bothered some people."
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Everyone in Palermo could only wonder if Puglisi's murder was even being
denounced in its true context. This man was a true Saint in every sense
of the word and he was looked on with disdain by his own archbishop!
Many Italians ask why, then, was the Vatican not officially represented
at Puglisi's funeral. Couldn't the pope have attended himself? He had in
the past condemned Italian organized crime.
In an open letter sent by eight Sicilian priests to John Paul II after
Puglisi's murder, they requested the pope's presence at his funeral as a
prophetic act. "Our brother, Giuseppe Puglisi, was surely not one of the
priests and bishops you warned, in Agrigento in May, about being weak
and overcautious in the fight against the Mafia," they wrote. "... Many
of us here in Palermo are discouraged and feel lost, and we wonder if it
is worth our efforts to continue our battle (against the Mafia), also
because there are still bishops and priests here who are not true
witnesses of the liberation Christ desires for this island of ours."
Among those who signed the letter were embattled parish priests of
Mafia-infested slums of Palermo and an outspoken Jesuit intellectual,
Fr. Ennio Pintacuda.
Puglisi's favorite rhetorical question – "And what if somebody did
something?" – is scrawled on walls in Brancaccio. In 1999 after so many
outcries from the Sicilian faithful, the Cardinal of Palermo started his
beatification process, proclaiming father Puglisi a Servant of God.
Despite this, little to nothing has been done to champion the cause of
this Martyr and to bring him to full recognition as a great person in
the Church.
Opus Apostolorum has done much to further the anti-mafia initiative. In
fact, our young people in Germany have adopted a music video which
depicts Father Giuseppe’s life and witness against evil and organized
crime as their official witness and to further this Saint’s cause
for justice and truth in the world. To us Father Giuseppe’s true witness
to Christ will never be forgotten.
Video coming soon to this web site!
Fight for your
Catholicism!!!