Pope Francis heads deep into mafia territory with trip to Naples

PanARMENIAN.Net - Pope Francis heads deep into mafia territory Saturday, March 21, with a one-day trip to Naples to visit jailbirds and the poor, amid heightened security against a possible attack by Islamist militants, according to AFP.

Up to 800,000 people are expected to gather in the southern Italian city to welcome the Argentine pontiff, who declared war on organized crime last year by "excommunicating" all mafiosi from the Catholic Church.

Security will be tight: apart from risks posed by gangsters with a grudge, the pope has been threatened by the Islamic State group and trips outside the Vatican are considered prime opportunities for assassination attempts.

After a massacre at a Tunisian museum this week claimed by the IS group, all eyes with be on the elderly pontiff's safety, with 3,000 extra policemen deployed along the route he will take, including snipers on the rooftops.

Francis will begin the day at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, before taking a helicopter to the violent, poverty and crime-ridden Scampia neighborhood in Naples, where he will meet with local residents.

He will then hold mass in the Piazza del Plebiscito in the historic center, a stone's throw from the Gulf of Naples, before visiting the city's overcrowded Poggio Reale jail, where 2,500 prisoners are squeezed into a space for 1,400.

The pope, self-proclaimed defender of the downtrodden, will lunch with 90 of the inmates, including a dozen transsexuals, homosexuals and AIDS sufferers, according to the Catholic TV2000 television channel.

In Naples' Cathedral he will pray in front of the relics of the city's patron saint Januarius, where some of the former bishop's blood in a vial is said to miraculously liquefy three times a year, according to popular legend.

The visit will wind up with a sea-front concert of Neapolitan songs performed for the 78-year old pope by youngsters.

Francis is expected to speak about the ills weighing upon the region, from endemic corruption to drug addiction, sky-high unemployment and environmental pollution in an area scarred by the illegal burning of toxic rubbish.

Last year the pope expelled all unrepentant mafia members from the Church and condemned them to Hell in the afterlife in a move which sparked fears of retaliation from the underworld.

During a visit to territory controlled by the powerful 'Ndrangheta organization in the southern Italian Calabria region, he described the mafia as "the adoration of evil and contempt for common good."

"This evil must be beaten, expelled," he said, calling for historic ties between organized crime and the Church to be severed -- an appeal he is likely to repeat in Naples, AFP says.