Should the Archbishop of Palermo be the next Pope?
In crime wracked Palermo, the Church shows moral leadership.
On Wednesday a young man was shot dead in a nightclub in Palermo. He was 22, called Lino Celesia, and was a former professional footballer. His assailant, who has been arrested and has confessed, was seventeen years old. The assailant’s elder brother has also been arrested, for carrying an illegal weapon. One theory the police have, as they try to reconstruct the crime, is that this may have had something to do with the shoot out that occurred recently in via La Lumia, which I wrote about here.
One is amazed that seventeen year olds go out to nightclubs with guns, and that they use them to deadly effect. Where do the guns come from? And why are the young so violent? And why is Palermo becoming more and more disorderly?
This video is well worth watching and will reduce you to tears, if you can speak Italian and follow what the people are saying, It shows a torchlight procession organised by various businessmen in the centro storico. (It was organised months ago, but took place after the murder of young Celesia.) The various vox pops are so upsetting because these people are not asking for very much; rather than making extravagant demands as is often the way in the Anglo-Saxon world, they are merely asking for more police on the streets, and respect for the rule of law. The latter is something that most Europeans take for granted. But in Sicily civil society is clearly facing an existential threat.
One of the people leading the procession was the Archbishop, don Corrado Lorefice, who had this to say: ‘We need to unite and understand what is happening in the city. There is an educational drift since covid: there is a malaise, people lack something essential, in particular our young people. What have we passed on to them? What vision of life have we given them and what emptiness have we created around them?"
The Archbishop is right. When a seventeen year old shoots a twenty-two year old dead in a nightclub that is not just a problem of law and order; it is a moral problem. The murder of poor Lino Celesia throws into relief the way Palermo has become a city wracked by crime, in particular hold ups in businesses and armed robbery on the streets. This sort of world did not come about by accident, but is a result of the moral vacuum in which so many live.
None of this has anything to do with the Mafia, by the way. They are very much against this sort of mindless violence. But the sort of young men who commit these crimes are perfect recruits for the discipline of Mafia life. Once again, the failure of the state opens the door for the rise and rise of the Mafia.
As for Archbishop Lorefice, whose wise words are to be commended, he is surely the sort of Italian prelate who would make a good Pope. But he is not even a candidate, except notionally, as he is not a Cardinal. I wonder why not?