The Mafiosa Nun
Or rather, the magistrates are imagining things.
While there has always been a strong tradition in Italy of priests fighting the Mafia, many of whom paying for it dearly, there have also been the sort of priests who have either been passive or even active helpers of the Mafia. I have written about both types. There have even been priests who have been fully paid up Mafiosi, usually involved in smuggling of one type or another, back in the day before drugs became the main thing. But I have never heard of a Mafiosa nun, perhaps because the Mafia is a male dominated affair.
Until now.
The police have rounded up twenty-five alleged members of the ‘Ndrangheta in Brescia. While the ‘Ndrangheta, the world’s most successful Mafia organisation, originates in Calabria, it has its tentacles all over Europe, and in Italy Lombardy is a major centre of operations, as Lombardy is where the wealth of Italy is to be found, and is the hub of its commerce and industry. Among the twenty-five arrested are two politicians, no surprises there, and a nun, Sister Anna Donelli, aged 57.
The good sister was involved in prison ministry, and, it is alleged, carrying messages to and from imprisoned clan members, as well as acting as the boss’s eyes and ears on the inside, able as she was to pass freely in several prisons, without arousing suspicion. ‘She is one of us,’ is how the boss Stefano Tripodi put it in one of those taped conversations the Italian police specialise in overhearing.
Meanwhile, Sister Anna, who is a native of Cremona, has retained counsel. According to the local paper in the province of Cremona:
“'Those who know her well cannot accept that she was intentionally criminal,' said Robert Ranieli in an interview with Corriere della Sera, the lawyer retained by Sister Anna Donelli, the nun from Cremona who two days ago ended up under house arrest as part of the investigation by the Brescia Prosecutor's Office into an alleged criminal group linked to the 'Ndrangheta, accused of external complicity in Mafia association for having ‘taken advantage of her spiritual office’ to help the clan of the boss Stefano Terzo Tripodi communicate among members inside the prison, ‘resolving conflicts’ and ‘overriding the ban on conversations’ even with family members outside the prisons. Sister Anna will be questioned by the investigating judge next week. Resident in Milan, the nun, 57, has always spent her days among the inmates of the San Vittore and Brescia prisons, among drug addicts, the sick and difficult kids. ‘As a lawyer,’ the lawyer told Corriere della Sera, ‘I reserve the right to carefully study the documents, but at first reading I see no direct and concrete evidence, only chatter from others that can lead one to think something that is not the case.’ For the lawyer, this could all be a mistake. Other volunteers at the San Vittore and Brescia prisons where the nun worked think so too. Many assert: ‘If they arrested her, they should arrest us all.’”
If Sister Anna is in fact a member of the ‘Ndrangheta, well, that will be the greatest drama starring a nun since The Sound of Music, in my opinion, and someone should snap up her story right now. However, I suspect the lawyer is right, and the prosecutors have let their imaginations run away with them, which is not unusual in a country where people see conspiracies everywhere. Remember the case of Amanda Knox, an innocent who was retrofitted into a ridiculous theory. Of course, the good sister had access to all the criminals and spent hours talking to them, and carried messages to loved ones on the outside, given that prison chaplains also minister to the families of the imprisoned. The boss’s ‘one of us’ comment could easily be interpreted as meaning he saw her as a good and kind person, no more, on the side of the inmates, in other words, doing her job.
As for the idea that she is a member of the clan, one thing makes that very unlikely. She may be of Calabrian parentage (it is not clear), but she was born in Cremona, and in the world of the Mafia, to be truly one of us, you have to be born in the right place, which Cremona emphatically is not.
Let us see what transpires. But in my opinion, Sister Anna seems innocent, and will, I hope, soon have her name cleared.
I completely agree.