Archbishop Refuses Burial to Mafia Boss

In Agrigent in Sicily, the local Bishop has refused Church burial to a known mafia boss.  For the "number two" of the Cosa Nostra in the area of Agrigent provincial city of Siculiana, Giuseppe Lo Mascolo (73), whose memory has been kept by the Archbishop of Francesco Mongtenegro to prayers for the dead, only according to the Roman newspaper "Il Messaggero" on Thursday.  Mafia figures were refused Church burial for the first time in Agrigent said "Il Messaggero".  Lo Mascolo who'd died three days earlier had been in the custody of Italian Police the previous week.  Shortly thereafter he was brought to a hospital for a heart arrhythmia.

 In Agrigent Pope John Paul II had spoken 19 years earlier on the 9th of May in 1993 in a stirring speech condemned the crimes of the Mafia and called for resistance against organized crime.

From kath.net....