The Mafia’s Last Gasp Against the Catholic Church
Imagine that St. Patrick’s Cathedral was bombed by the mafia in retaliation for the archbishop of New York denouncing them. Imagine Cardinal John O’Connor inspecting the damage, knowing the attack was directed personally at him.
In 1993, it didn’t happen in New York, the capital of the world, but it did happen in Rome, capital of the Church.
That year the mafia bombed St. John Lateran. The official cathedral of Rome. As the cathedra, or official seat, of the Holy Father as Bishop of Rome, it expresses the universal unity of the Church even more than St. Peter’s Basilica. The latter is the world’s parish church, while St. John Lateran is the cathedral of the universal Church. The inscription in the portico reads: “mother and head of the all the churches in the city and the world.”
Pope Francis last Thursday addressed a public letter to the faithful of his diocese on the 30th anniversary of that bombing. An overnight prayer vigil was held to mark the anniversary. The Holy Father recalled in his short letter the circumstances that led to the sacrilegious attack.
In the early 1990s, Italy was plagued by a series of mafia bombings in response to a national criminal justice campaign against organized crime and corruption. In 1990, a young judge, Rosario Livatino, was assassinated in Agrigento, Sicily. He was beatified as a martyr in 2021.
In 1992, two more senior judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, were also assassinated in Sicily.
In 1993, St. John Paul II made a visit to Sicily. Just before an outdoor Mass in the spectacular Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, the Holy Father met with the parents of Blessed Rosario. The encounter must have moved him, for at the end of the Mass, John Paul delivered an extemporaneous denunciation of the mafia’s campaign of terror.
“In the name of Christ, crucified and risen, of Christ who is the way, the truth and the life, I say to those responsible: Convert!” John Paul shouted, shaking with righteous anger. “The judgment of God will come!”
The mafia took note. And added the Church to its list of terror targets.
