Pope Francis in mafia crosshairs

In our September 9, and October 20 posts we talked about the Vatican Bank and its dealings with terrorists and the mafia.  The cozy history of the vatican and the mafia is coming back to bite or do worse to pope francis.  Since the money laundering schemes have been in the news so often and because an investigation is ongoing by the European anti-money laundering committee Moneyval, pope francis has been verbal about how he will clean up the bank.

Francis called on the mafia to repent for “exploiting and enslaving people” in his sermons. Of course he “forgets” that under vatican protection abusive pedophile nuns and priests have been exploiting and enslaving children for 2,000 years. He never talks about those facts.

The pope’s defenses are supposed to be the best – he spends enough of our money on personal guards – but that might not be enough to prevent him from being a mafia target.

One of Italy's best known anti-mob prosecutors Nicola Gratteri, who has lived under police protection for nearly 25 years, said the “Jesuit Pope's” clean-up plans were upsetting powerful Italian crime organizations in Italy.

"I don't know if organised crime is in a position to do something, but certainly they are thinking about it. It could be dangerous (for the pope).” If the bosses could take him down they would not hesitate,” Gratteri told 'Il Fatto Quotidiano', an Italian daily newspaper.

The mafia donates money to the church, they sponsor catholic religious festivals and pay for local church repairs. They even pay to be buried on church property (see post August 10). So the mafia has always expected the church to keep silent and support their money laundering and other banking activities.

Asked if the mafia would dare try to assassinate the pope, Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organized crime in Italy told CNN, "There are so many ways to kill a pope. They have to be careful. But in the history of organized crime, whenever they had to remove an obstacle, they never thought about the consequences."