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CULTURE OF LAWFULNESS
The role of religious experiences
The Sicilian case

The Sicilian Renaissance Institute

INDEX

- Introduction The Sicilian Cart by Leoluca Orlando - Preface The need for "antimafia pastoral" by Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo - Promotion of a culture of lawfulness The contribution of Sicily's Catholic community by Mons. Salvatore Di Cristina - Palermo's "Segno" by Nino Fasullo - What model of Church to face the Mafia by Cosimo Scordato The Sicilian Reinassance Institute Statement of purpose Biographies

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The Sicilian Cart

by Leoluca Orlando
President of the Sicilian Renaissance Institute

Culture of legality seems a play on words, words that express different realities: wholesome and warm the former, cold and angular the latter. An astounding play on words. It is the priority choice of the United Nations Organization in the matter of crime prevention in the world in 2002 and for the next four years. But the astonishment goes further. The United Nations indicate the rebirth of Palermo as model and symbol for the promotion of the culture of legality in the five continents. What happened in Palermo and, more generally, in Sicily during the last few years of the century and the millennium? The citizens sought to oppose a violent and uncivil phenomenon like the Mafia without themselves becoming violent and uncivil. Their NO to the death penalty to the point of conferring honorary citizenship upon the condemned (of any country and no matter what the reason: nobody may kill, not even a state!) and honorary citizenship for the 14th Dalai Lama, the concert of solidarity for the oppressed Kurdish people and honorary citizenship for David Trimble and John Hume, both winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, but also the re-opening of the Massimo Theatre and the construction of tens of new school buildings, and the rehabilitation of the city's immense and most beautiful centre, completely abandoned for so many years ... all these, far from being episodes of protagonism of a peripheral administration, were part and parcel like the tesserae of a mosaic of a precise and harmonious cultural project. Our experience proved to be a theory and a model, and not only a vitalistic and precarious experience made up of unemployed asking for work by protesting on the roofs of the palaces of power, or of garbage bins overturned by demonstrators, made up of traffic jams and continuous exhortations to do better (a kind of "io speriamo che me la cavo"1; or as we would put it in our Sicilian dialect, "agghiurno... ora speriamo ca scura"... "we have seen the day break ... let's hope we'll manage 'til the evening"). That experience is today making the rounds of the world, a foundation The Sicilian Renaissance Institute has come out of it and promotes positive leadership towards the tandem democracy-legality. If it is true that there is a relationship between democracy and peace, it is also true

that peace is far too important for it to be entrusted solely to the military. Palermo reminds us that there is a relationship between democracy and legality, but that legality is far too important to be entrusted only to policemen and public prosecutors. The model is the Sicilian cart, the traditional Sicilian cart with its two wheels, the wheel of culture and the wheel of legality. Two wheels that have to turn at the same speed, otherwise the cart won't move forward, will simply wheel in circles. If only the wheel of culture is turning and the wheel of legality remains still, there is the risk of organizing a fine concert of Sicilian music in honour ... of some Mafia boss. At the beginning of my work as mayor (in the second half of the 'eighties) I seemed to be just like many other mayors of Sicilian cities a policeman, a public prosecutor: I almost invariably talked about crime and trials ... the cart stood still, both its wheels had sunk deep into the bog of fear and collusion .. but a start had somehow to be made, the cart had to be got moving again. Thanks to the dedication of courageous policemen and magistrates, the wheel of legality eventually started moving again and I could therefore concern myself with the other wheel, making sure that the two wheels would turn at the same speed. And so it was, the two wheels began to turn at the same speed, and Palermo, once a handicap, became a resource, something shameful was turned into a model. Midway through the 'eighties we had some 240/250 Mafia killings in Palermo (and solely in Palermo!) each year. In 2000 we had just eight murders in Palermo, none of them connected with the Mafia. Midway through the 'eighties they said there was democracy and free market in Palermo. 1 don't know what kind of democracy and what kind of free market they had in mind, seeing that the whole of the economy was controlled by the Mafiosi and that every Palermitan had either a relative or a friend who had been killed by the Mafia, either because he opposed that criminal organization or was actually a member of it! In 2000 we can really speak of democracy and free market in Palermo: democracy in Palermo lives the hopes and the ills and the latter unfortunately are not by any means few of Italian politics as a whole and in Palermo it has become possible to live, work and do business without coming up against the Mafia. At the beginning of my term as mayor, midway through the 'eighties, the municipal administration neither had a regular budget nor an inventory of public property; in 2000 Palermo's municipal administration obtained an Aa3 rating from Moody's, an international financial reliability rating that put it on par with the administrations of Stockholm, Boston and San Francisco, and better than such cities as New York or Chicago, to say nothing of Rome, Milan and Turin. Am I saying that the Mafia no longer exists in Palermo? Certainly not!!!

The Mafia exists, even in Palermo. But today the Mafia no longer controls as it did in the past the heads and the purses of Palermo's citizens. Though the Mafia I am referring to the new and winning Mafia - still seeks to control both heads and purses, it no longer does so by invoking and distorting such traditional values of culture as honour and family, but rather by evoking and distorting liberty and success, the emerging values of Italian culture. Today in Palermo both the "old" and the "new" Mafias are present and operating. There is the risk that the old Mafia, the Mafia bound up with the politics of the so-called "First Republic" which should have been swept away by the explosion of the moral question in the 'nineties will now become flanked by a new Mafia, the Mafia that tries to get its foot into the politics of the so-called "Second Republic": the Mafia of the First Republic bound up with the distortions of the economy of unearned income, the Mafia of the Second Republic bound up with the distortions of the economy of profit. This experience is today becoming a model and surpasses the confines of the reality conditioned by the Mafia. In the past the Mafia was a "genus"; and this genus coincided with the Sicilian Mafia. The Mafia was the Sicilian Mafia - the Mafia was Sicily, Sicily was the Mafia. Today it is being realized that the Sicilian Mafia is only a "species"; the Russian Mafia is another, so is the Chinese variety, and the Colombian one is yet another. Reflecting about the different Mafias in the world today, we can affirm that the genus is not Mafia, but rather what is called "identity illegality", i.e. an illegality connected with a cultural identity. When we are attacked by a robber who wants to deprive us of our money, all we have to do is to call the police, the public prosecutor. But when we are attacked by a robber who wants to deprive us of money by invoking Corsican pride, Basque identity, the teachings of Mahomet or the words of Christ or of Yahweh ... it is no longer enough to call the police or the public prosecutor ... what we need is the second wheel of the Sicilian cart, the wheel of culture. In other words, school, the world of information, the men of religion, civil society. And thus every time we think of violation of human rights by bandits and terrorists, no matter what their cultural identity, we always come back to the wheel of culture, the wheel that at Palermo contributed to freeing the heads of the citizens from the hegemony of the Mafia. Culture, as should be clear by now, is music, is dance, but first and foremost is con-

sciousness of one's individual and community identity and its link with the respect of the human person, every human person. Every cultural identity is exposed to the risk of mortifying (humiliating) the human person, the fundamental rights of every human person. It is the phenomenon, the theory that, basing myself on Salman Rushdie's famous book and the experience of Palermo's renaissance, I call "satanic verse". When a value, a cultural sign is used to mortify human rights, that value, that cultural sign is turned into satanic verse. Honour and the family were thus used by the Mafia as satanic verse to kill and rob... in the name of honour, in the name of the family. And likewise Basque, Catholic-Irish or Corsican pride have been used by Basque, Catholic-Irish and Corsican terrorism to kill and to rob... in the name of that selfsame pride. And in just the same way the German people's respect for the law was used by Nazism to obtain obedience for the racial laws... in the very name of that traditional German respect for the law. And in just the same way freedom, security and wellbeing can be used as satanic verse whenever they are invoked to kill, to rob, to violate rights of the human person. It is Palermo's experience that tells us all this. And we Sicilians have a great experience that we ought not to boast about ... indeed, George Bernard Shaw reminded us that experience is the name we give to our mistakes... and we Sicilians have great experience because we have made many great mistakes. The Mafia still exists: violent and weakened the one that uses honor, family and friendship as "satanic verse"; enchanting and go-getting the one that uses liberty, success and wealth as its "satanic verse". Though equally criminal, both these mafias can be resisted: that is the lesson that comes from Sicily. With the two wheels of the Sicilian cart, with respect for law and identity, with the culture of legality born in Sicily amid sorrow and fear, rage and hope, it is possible to resist all the Mafias in any part of the world, as also all the manifestations of identity illegality". That lesson, which the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations adopted and made its own, has affirmed itself as a strategic choice for the prevention of crime throughout the world. But that lesson stands in need of being continuously updated and vivified to avoid that distortions of the economy of unearned income and capitalism without rules, isolation and mortification of the operators of justice and loss of sense of responsibility could bring about, and not only in Sicily, a return to the terrible season of massacres.
1) A schoolboys completely ungrammatkal, but also untranslatable way of saying "let's hope I'll get by" rendered famous by the book of a teacher published in Italy some years ago.

The need for "antimafia pastoral"

by Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo
Palermo Archbishop emeritus

When I first arrived in Palermo in December 1970, it was still being affirmed that Cardinal Ruffini, one of my predecessors in the see, had denied the existence of the Mafia in Sicily. That was not correct. In a pastoral letter written in 1967 he had in fact said that the Mafia was not "the true face of Sicily", as some people may still hold today, but that Sicilians (and even I have said this on several occasions) had rather to be considered as the victims of the Mafia and that, given their ancient civilization, culture and Christian faith, they had virtues and merits that could not but be loyally recognized. I should here add that the Cardinal's letter went on to sustain that the cause of the presence and arrogance of the Mafia in Sicily's territory was the absence of the State, unable to assure the orderly enjoyment by the citizens of their rights and their legitimate personal liberty. Nowadays everybody recognizes that such a situation existed for a long time in Sicily and that a citizen who wished to obtain something from a municipal, regional or state administration often had to seek the mediation of an influential friend, or turn to some politician or even a Mafioso, with the result that people obtained as a "favour" what was really their due as an act of correct administration or justice. And it could also happen that in this manner they obtained things to which they were not entitled and even things that were clearly contra legem. In short, the political situation in Italy, and especially in Sicily, was for a long period of time such as to give rise to collusions, connivances, favouritisms and the like, and this to the point where all this was practically taken for granted! A regional inquiry about the Mafia carried out in the 1970's produced numerous volumes of proceedings, but practically no results. Evidently, the action of those who were supposed to ascertain the facts and set the law in motion whenever appropriate had become blocked at a certain point, and everything could therefore continue as before. It should be borne in mind, however, that very little was known at that time about the nature and organization of the Mafia. People could be certain only that it was something you had best stay away from, indeed, that you did well not to even pro-nounce its name in public for fear that in some way or another that could bring troubles on your head. It therefore created a certain impression when in the course of some public spee-

ches I openly referred to the presence and pernicious action of the Mafia and the Mafiosi and suggested that they were present even among the so-called "white collars". In short, there was a tendency to consider and confine the Mafia as something purely criminal and therefore of interest only to the police forces and the courts. The crimes it committed, especially the murders, were looked upon either as internal affairs of the Mafia gangs or as intimidations or vendettas involving some official or magistrate who had done his work with excessive zeal. In the sad period when organized terrorism was rampant in all part of the Italian peninsula, some people even came to believe - almost with satisfaction - that no such terrorist acts had occurred in Sici-ly, because there was the Mafia to prevent it! However, for the purposes of a proper valuation of the attention that the Sicilian episcopate paid to the large number of assassinations and armed robberies that were being perpetrated in the island, it seems to me important to mention that the bishops, ever since the regional synod in 1952, and therefore in the days of Cardinal Ruffini, had inflicted "excommunication" (i.e., the spiritual penalty of exclusion from the Church community) upon the executors and instigators of these crimes. The excommunication was confirmed by the Sicilian Episcopal Conference on two subsequent occasions and it still applies today. The perception that the Mafia, quite apart from its individual crimes, also promoted a subversive project vis-h-vis the State dates to the end of the 1970s, and with it came the general realization that the fight against it could not be left solely to the police forces and the courts. The numerous crimes committed around the beginning of the 1980's, among them the assassination of the Regional President, Piersanti Mattarella, other servants of the State and then also the Prefect of Palermo, General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, brought home to everybody just how tragic the situation had become and how great was the need for the State to intervene quickly and with great determination. The Latin phrase I quoted on the tragic occasion of the funeral of General Dalla Chiesa remained impressed in people's memory: "Dum Romae consulitur, Saguntum expugnatur" ("While they talk in Rome, Saguntum is being conquered") was intended to be, and was also understood as such, an appeal that the State should be more continuously and actively present in its territory and implied also that the social structures should realize that they could no longer remain inert, but had likewise to be present and active in the face of such a menacing danger. Since then the Church assemblies and meetings in the island have witnessed an ever larger number of interventions and denunciations not only of the antisocial aspect of the Mafia, but also of the things that place it in such sharp contrast with the Gospel

and the ways of living and operating that are peculiar to the Church community. The Regional Meeting of 1985 even arrived at prospecting the need for a specifically "antimafia pastoral" in the island. The diction may not have been wholly correct, but it did bring home just how very essential it was that the Church, too, should assume a very dear and decided position in its educational and formative action. A position that would vigorously underscore that observance of the natural law, the divine commandments and the evangelical precepts implies in itself not only a radical opposition to individual acts of criminal transgression, but also the refusal of the very concepts and mentality of the Mafia, which have to be expressly condemned as such and shown up as in every way detrimental to legality, true justice and Christian charity. The statements made in this connection by the bish-ops in their pastoral documents and the communiques of the Regional Conferences thus became ever stronger and more explicit and were subsequently confirmed also by the present Pope, who in 1991 re-ferred to the Mafia in the following terms: "This social scourge represents a serious menace not only to civil society, but also to the mission of the Church, since it undermines the ethical consciousness and Christian culture of the Sicilian people from within". In short, we realized more clearly that, as far as the Mafia was concerned, we had to talk not only with the juridical categories and the language of the penal code and civil society, but also with the categories and terminology of the Church, so as to make it very clear that the actions and the mentality of the Mafia are already in themselves gravely sinful, that they are in radical conflict with the Gospel, which proclaims justice, love and peace as the fundamental and inalienable values of a Christian. Equally strong words can be read in similar documents published between 1992 and 1995 (years that witnessed the massacres of the magistrates Falcone and Borsellino and their escorts, and the assassination of Don Puglisi, a priest), when the General Assembly of the Italian Dioceses to be held in Paler-mo was already being prepared: "As regards the Mafia, inasmuch as it is a distorted complex of false values, quite apart from its pernicious potential of delinquency... it is our duty to underscore the denunciation... regarding its incompatibility with the Gospel..., which is inherent in the Mafia as such, because without any shadow of doubt it forms part of the kingdom of sin, and turns its members into nothing other than hands of the Devil". For this reason, we kept on repeating that "all those who in some way and deliberately form part of the Mafia or commit acts of connivance with the Mafia should know that they are and live in unhealable opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that they are outside the communion of his Church". These were unequivocal statements that cannot leave any doubt as to the position the Church has assumed in respect of the Mafia, and were made known both to the faithful and to all those in society who could be interested in knowing this position.

Other citations, if you wish, could still be added, a case in point being a document that the bishops published in 1996 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Sicily's Statute of Autonomy: "We cannot but recall and denounce delinquency in all its forms, and particularly the Mafia... It constitutes Sicily's most shameful social scourge that with its foul and excessive power, the tragic succession of its dead... and its abominable crimes, humiliates, mortifies and damages our land, corrodes the essential nodes of its social and political life, and clouds its image and name before the rest of the country and the world". It is legitimate to hold that such repeated public denunciations and condemnations have not remained without effect in the mind and conscience of those who in this land of Sicily are anxious to continue calling themselves Christians. As regards the Palermitan Church, in particular, together with all the other churches in the island, it has sought to be present and active in its territory, intensifying the various forms of evangelization in the course of time, especially the so-called popular missions, which were celebrated throughout the dioceses with great commitment in 1984 and the immediately following years as a moment of intent reflection about the moral and religious values of life and a strong and general appeal for a change in people's behaviour. Some 4000 "lay missionaries" of both sexes were involved in this work, by means of which the Church sought to reach as many people and families as possible, in individual homes, in blocks of flats, in streets and squares, in public structures, in meeting places and at work. It was in those years that we had the opportunity of increasing the number of parishes, which was brought from 158 to 178, thus enhancing their presence in the territory and the specific activities of religious education and formation performed at this level. We paid ever greater attention to young people, to whom so many pastoral appeals had already been addressed in preceding years, seeking to stimulate them ever more strongly towards the good and away from evil. We sought to involve all the Church realities and communities in this program, so that it should be seen that the action that had to be taken was not just limited to the clergy, the religious and small groups of volunteers, but called for the presence of the entire Church community. We also had some extraordinary penitential celebrations that took place in the Cathedral and enjoyed a massive participation of people and civil and social representations; improperly called "antimafia masses", they sought to promote wide-spread consciousness of the social and moral evil induced by Mafia activities. The Palermitan Church has always been richly blessed with good will and dedication to its mission, and it made extensive use of these to spread not only strictly religious

values, but also those of human promo-don, social solidarity, legality and morality. The youth groups in the parishes have always been a field where priests, religious educators and pastoral workers have worked with much patience, fighting unceasingly against every form of egoism and spreading the notion of the common good that is just as essential for the life of the Church community as it is for the progress of civil society. The same formative and educational commitment has also been extended to many and highly diverse associations of young people - and also of the not so very young - that exist in the dioceses, about a hundred in all, each with its own membership, and all forming part of the Lay Apostolate Council. They include the popular confraternities, some of which can look back on a history covering several centuries, the numerous groups of Catholic Action, and those animated by the numerous religious orders present in Palermo with their churches, schools, oratories and meeting places where adolescents can play and learn. We have always been able to rely also on the numerous volunteer groups at work in various social service centres for persons at risk or in need of material or assistance, among them the "Borsellino Centres, Santa Chiara, the so-called Case famiglia (Family homes), those of the Cardinal Ruffini Charitable Institution, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the Servants of the Poor, the Missionaries of Charity, Biagio Conte's Hope and Charity Mission, and so on. But mention should also be made here of the strongly formative activities of the Catholic schools: between kindergartens, elementary, secondary and higher schools they tot up to 132; managed either by religious educators or directly by the Diocese, they are doing highly profitable work, not least among the families of their pupils. Together with these charitable and educational institutions, Palermo's Church has also sought to help lay people to improve their education in the social and religious fields: apart from the Theological Faculty and the Superior Institute of Religious Sciences, about forty popular schools have been opened offering three-year courses of basic theology, a Social Service University School, university courses in jurisprudence, and two centres dedicated, respectively, to political culture and Catholic social doctrine. This long list of initiatives, not by any means com-plete, bears witness to the attention the Diocese has always paid in the past, and even more so in recent years, to ensure that evangelical culture and spirit should permeate to the various levels of the population, for these not only sustain the life of faith of Christians, but are undoubtedly also a valid antidote for every form of ethical, legal, moral and social deviation.

Though care has always been taken to enhance the fundamental action and responsibility of parents in the education in the religious and civil education of their children, our Church has always held that the state school institutions are privileged means and fields for promoting the global education of children and preventing them falling prey to the obscure forces at work in society. Recent years have seen the Palermitan schools actively engaged in activities aimed at promoting social values, and this has undoubtedly been one of the most important elements for fostering greater civil consciousness not only among the young, but among the citizenry as a whole. Don Giuseppe Puglisi, the priest assassinated by the Mafia in Palermo in 1993, thought and acted in this way. Particularly committed in the Brancaccio quarter, he did a great deal of work for the religious and social formation of the young and this was why the Mafia decided to kill him. Always well conscious of the duties that derived from his pastoral ministry, he kept asking the competent authorities that in his quarter, quite apart from appropriate structures to take the youngsters away from the degradation and miseducation of the streets, there should be opened a secondary school, capable not only of giving them culture, but also promoting the sense of their civil dignity and liberty and the ability to defend them. Palermo's Church today takes this minister as symbol and martyr of the will of redemption that still animates the city, so that it may continue and complete the promising process of liberation from the Mafia that has been under way and to reaffirm the loftiest values of physical, civil, moral and religious life, values that are all inherent in the Christian faith that for so many centuries sustained this ancient and noble Sicilian peopie.

* Speech in occasion of the international symposium "The role of Civil society in Countering organised crime: ( bal implication of the Palermo, Sicily Renaissance"' December 2000

The role of religious experiences The Sicilian case

Promotion of a culture of lawfulness The contribution of Sicily's Catholic community by Mons. Salvatore Di Cristina

Let me begin by bidding a hearty and most cordial welcome to all of you, Ladies and Gentlemen, and saying a word of thanks to the organizers of this seminar, to whom I am most grateful for having invited me to come here and make a contribution. May you all have the fruits and benefits you expected from this experience. As regards my specific contribution, I cannot set the ball rolling without making at least a brief mention of a "note" by the Italian Episcopal Conference that goes back to a few years ago, but is still rather significant for our present purposes. Indeed, both the subject matter of the note, which bore the title Educare alia legalira (Educating for legality), and the particular historical moment that suggested its publication at the time have a close bearing on the reflections of our seminar The note in question is dated 4 October 1991, a date that brings to the mind of us Italians a rather stormy and tempestuous period of our recent history, characterized by certain scandals that derived from the failure of some top levels of the political life of our country to comply with the requirements of legality. Let me say right away that the note of the Italian episcopate had a considerable and, indeed, capillary impact of reflection and self-criticism on practically all the country's Church communities, giving rise to a courageous calling into question of choices and life styles that were more or less current at the various levels of public and private life and a consequent and rather tangible re-awakening of a more authentic civil consciousness among Italian Catholics. As regards Sicily in particular, the theme of education for legality had at the time and keeps on having true moments of choral reflection that, on at least two particularly solemn occasions during this last decade, also enjoyed considerable publicity and echo. I am referring to a great Church meeting held in November 1993 with the participation of more than one thousand five hundred representatives of all the Sicilian dioceses. That meeting courageously denounced the "spreading and taking root of an excessively subjectivist mentality", the tendency to interpret the "good, including the common good, in an egocentric and utilitarian sense. It therefore declared this way of seeing things and the behaviour patterns that go with as being in contrast with Christian culture. Given the ecclesial character of the meeting, the message was clearly addressed first and foremost to Catholics and was intended to stimulate a healthy self-criticism: "Unfortunately as the final document of the meeting noted we have to admit that

not even Christians always manage to remain immune from this sickness of society" . The second solemn occasion was offered by the Conference of the Sicilian Bishops in 1996, which coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the statute that set up the Sicilian Region. As regards lawfulness, the final document, produced with the help of numerous experts in various juridical, administrative and social fields, noted with discretion, but also rather forcefully, that the regional political framework at that moment was "burdened by the widespread technical incompetence of those responsible for the public Administration, the lack of true political professionalism of these selfsame administrators .. and (even) a certain deplorable openness of the system to being permeated by illicit and illegal interests" . The bishops therefore called for the "vigil and responsible participation of all, especially those who have direct responsibilities in the political and social field", appealing to them "to act in a manner that was not in conflict but in harmony with the inalienable good of democracy and civil living together" , this in clear awareness that "no institutional reform is possible if it is not accompanied, founded and sustained by a reform of customs, fruit of the conversion of minds and hearts" . But the efforts of the Sicilian Church in favour of education for legality, efforts that we have been vigorously making for many years now, even though we are always looking for new methodological approaches, found their most typical application in connection with the sad phenomenon of the Mafia. It would hardly be appropriate for me to attempt a description of the Mafia phenomenon here; nor do I think would you wish me to retrace the various changes that have occurred in the attitude of the Church and civil society vis-a-vis this phenomenon and the reasons underlying these changes. Here I only want to recall that - from about the middle of last century onwards - the change began to take shape in the Church, perhaps too slowly at first, but almost certainly long before it did so in civil society. In this connection one only has to bear in mind that - as early as 1962 - the Plenary Council of Sicilian Bishops under the chairmanship of Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini had inflicted excommunication upon the executor and instigators of crimes committed in furtherance of organized criminality: a penalty that was subsequently confirmed by the Sicilian Episcopal Conference and is still applicable explicitly in connection with Mafia crimes. For the sake of truth and justice, I should also recall that as from the 'seventies onwards the contributions of the Sicilian episcopate and especially the statements of its Regional Conference have been characterized by the forcefulness and appropriateness of their denunciations. In particular, I cannot but recall the interventions of Palermo's previous Archbishop, Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, especially the speeches he made on the occasion of the tragic assassinations of the 'eighties and the early 'nineties, murders that shook the entire nation. Given his acute intelligence, Cardinal Pappalardo was well aware of the risk that could be associated with his commitment, which - though primarily intended as a pastoral commitment could nevertheless be interpreted in accor-

dance with the stereotype of the "anti-mafia priest" (or, in his case, "anti-mafia bishop"): in other words, the risk that his role as minister of the Word of God could become flattened into the reductive instances of so-called "civil religion". Cardinal Pappalardo's concern really derived from the need for finding an appropriate methodology, a Christian approach to the Mafia phenomenon, the peculiar theologico-pastoral horizon of which had not yet been clearly appreciated. On the one hand, there was the need for dispelling some commonplaces that saw the Mafia as traditionally "bound" to Sicily's ecclesiastic environment, be it on account of an occasional mafia affiliate who was also a relative of a member of the clergy, or the longstanding practice of the local mafias to play an active part in parish committees and congregations, or simply the ostentatious respect the Mafia was wont to show to men of the Church; on the other hand, the Church wanted to define the Mafia and the struggle against it in terms of a language that was not simply the mirror image of the language used by the courts and the mass media and therefore rather sterile from the point of view of the faith. More recently, lastly, an episode bound up with certain sacramental events administered by a Catholic priest to a fugitive mafia member, an episode that made the headlines not least on account of a clumsy and theatrical police operation, laid bare the existence of a specific problematic regarding the "pastoral care of Mafia members". But let me come back to my theme. The tragic recrudescence of Mafia violence, which reached a peak of brutality on the occasion of the assassinations in Palermo that I recalled a moment or two ago, aroused a wave of indignation that at long last began to assume a truly popular character even in Sicily. A wave of indignation that, at least among the strata of the population normally reached by Christian catechesis, obviously also tended to assume specifically Christian connotations. At this point many people took the view that dissociation from the Mafia, paid for with one's life, could be due to a Christianly motivated fidelity to one's conscience or that the commitment in the fight against the Mafia of some servants of the State could in some way be connected with the fact they were also practicing Catholics. The need for organizing an opposition to the Mafia that in some way was inspired directly by the Christian faith was beginning to be felt in the parishes and among the groups of the Catholic associations. At the regional meeting it was even said that Sicily stood in need of an "anti-mafia pastoral": the term may not be very appropriate, but is certainly highly expressive of this strongly-felt need for motivating and organizing the handling of this specific problem by means of a method inspired by the Gospel. A true turning point as regards the sense and the authentically Christian style of the fight against the Mafia was reached when Don Giuseppe Puglisi, parish priest of Brancaccio, one of Palermo's quarters where the Mafia is particularly numerous, was assassinated precisely on account of the dedication with which he sought to recuperate the people of his parish to a truly Christian consciousness. The spiritual stature of Don

Giuseppe and his lofty personality as a pastor, which he lived with a simple and yet winning and intensely communicative humanity, forcefully proposed him as a lofty model for the ecclesial community and its pastors, especially with a view to a method of fighting the Mafia no longer defined in purely general terms, but rather by its specific congruity with the mission of the Church. The formative contribution that Don Giuseppe Puglisi made to the fight against the Mafia, a contribution he paid for with a death forgive me the oxymoron lived as a true Christian, not only enabled the Church community to shed once and for all the equivocations of a certain and by then distant past, but also to adopt a pedagogy that will surely prove a winner against the Mafia's culture of death. Some months after his death, all this was very much in the minds of those attending the previously mentioned Third Meeting of the Sicilian Churches, whose labours are reflected in the document issued by the Sicilian bishops under the title "New Evangelization and Pastoral", especially when, assuming an unusually forceful position against the culture and the practice of the Mafia, they make specific reference to Don Giuseppe Puglisi:
"Against this Mafia mentality and against the violence of the Mafia, we Bishops of Sicily intend to oppose once again, but even more decidedly, the unarmed and yet irreducible power of the Gospel, a power that is dedicated to the persuasion, promotion and conversion of people, but also wholly intransigent in not authorizing exceptions or simple-minded compromises as far as evil is concerned, no matter who may commit it or profit therefiom. Don Giuseppe Puglisi fully incarnated this twofold power of the Gospel: he represents an example for all of us; the model that he constitutes for the Sicilian clergy and every true Christian is also the challenge we launch to all those whom it may concern".

It is legitimate to think that such strong denunciations and condemnations by Sicily's topmost Church authorities have not failed to produce effects in the mind and consciousness of all those who in this land of ours set store - and continue to set store on calling themselves Christians. The Theological Faculty of Sicily and other of the island's academic and Catholic cultural realties have for a long time past been involved in this reflection about the Christian specificity of both the theological motivation and the methodology and pastoral language of the Church's fight against the culture of the Mafia. Using the appropriate scientific instruments, they came to grips with the themes of the correct ethical and moral valuation of the Mafia phenomenon and sought to define in various ways the principles that should inspire the Church's attitude in the face of organized criminality. To which I might add that some priest-teachers have for some time been experimenting an interesting model of environmental pastoral action in a particularly degraded area of

Palermo's city centre, where they seek to get the beneficiaries directly involved in a kind of cultural "self-rehabilitation". As far as the Church of Palermo is concerned, together with the other Sicilian cities, every effort has been made to be present and active in all parts of its territory, gradually intensifying the principal resource of its pastoral mission, namely catechesis and formative action in general. 1. A memorable event in this connection was the mobilization of about three thousand lay missionaries, who had been painstakingly prepared over an entire year, for a series of catechesis courses held in Palermo's blocks of flats in 1884. The most tangible consequence of that mobilization was and still is the Theological Training School for Laymen (what we now call the Basic Theology School) which on average has some eight hundred students, who attend lessons, seminars and special training courses for a total of 110 hours a year. 2. Somewhat later, the Archdiocese also set up its own Socio-Political Training School, which sets itself the task of: - promoting a Christianly-informed culture of lawfulness; - paying attention to the Mafia phenomenon in the form of a high moral tension in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel; - promoting a culture of respect for and solidarity with all public officials who have the task of enforcing the laws of civil coexistence. 3. The Catholic academic institutions and other schools present in Sicily's capital are working in the same direction and are open to all without any discrimination whatsoever: The Theological Faculty of Sicily, which has three institutional cycles, specialization courses, a research doctorate, and also a Superior Institute of Religious Sciences (four hundred and fifty students); The University Course in Jurisprudence; One hundred and thirty-two nursery, elementary and lower and upper secondary schools run by the religious, who also do some very useful formative work with the parents of their students. 4. The Church of Palermo has always enjoyed a wealth of energies and ferments in the lay world and among the young. It availed itself of these to spread not only religious values in the strict sense, but also those of human promotion, social solidarity, legality and morality. The youth groups in the parishes and of the Catholic associations and movements have always been a rich fount of volunteer workers at present we in Sicily

can claim to be absolute leaders in this field at the national level. A particular has been made in connection with the work of Christian formation of the lay confraternities, traditional forms of religious association in our island, though in the past not always free of infiltrations far from compatible with an authentic Christianity. Today the confraternities often constitute a precious source of help for the priests. 5. The organizations at work to recuperate the unwitting victims of the Mafia culture, especially the children and the youngsters in the high-risk areas include the Centro Padre Nostro, founded by Don Giuseppe Puglisi in his Brancaccio, centres like Santa Chiara of the Salesian Fathers and Paolo Borsellino in the San Ernesto Parish, Casa dei Giovani, an association that is also an important structure for the rehabilitation of drug addicts, and the recently founded Centro Educazione alia Fraternita, which is sustained by a private association of highly motivated Christian laymen. 6. Though the Church of Palermo has always endeavoured to use its service structures to arouse and enhance the fundamental responsibility of the family in the religious and civil education of the new generations, it has also held in great consideration the task and the responsibility that the public institutions, school first and foremost among them, have in connection with the global human education of the young. It has therefore endeavoured to maintain close relations of collaboration through its own associative organizations. As a general rule, these relations are fruitful and cordial, based on mutual respect for the competencies of the two sides and dedicated solely to the interest of the young. This was the way of thinking and acting of Don Giuseppe Puglisi, engaged to the very end in urging the lower secondary school so sadly lacking in his quarter. It has since been set up and bears his name. The Church of Palermo, its clergy and people, all, has assumed this minister as symbol and witness of the will for redemption that animates it. It hopes that, following his example and trusting in his intercession with God, the whole of the City of Palermo will continue and complete the work of liberation from the Mafia, liberation from all browbeating of man by man that has been so promisingly commenced; a liberation accompanied by the promotion of the authentic (and therefore Christian) culture of the values of life, peace and justice that founds human co-existence and is desired by our Creator.

Palermo's "Segno" by Nino Fasullo

1. The first issue of "Segno" (Sign) saw the light of day in Palermo in November 1975. It did not have at its back a real editorial program, fruit of studies and specific analyses: the new paper had been decided in the space of a few weeks in substitution of another. But behind it there was an experience and, certainly, also very clear ideas about the renewal of the Church and politics: indeed, the paper kept steering its course on the twin rail of the Christian faith and commitment in society. However, the ideas of "Segno" had not been born right in Palermo. They came from the Vatican Council. The paper thus drew its origin from the most important ecclesial event of the century. The experience and the passions, on the other hand, were altogether Sicilian or, better, Palermitan: they assumed form and color in a city that, though immobile and backward, was also rich in energies that always seemed on the point of erupting. In actual fact "Segno" was born in Palermo in the house of the Redemptorist Fathers in Via Badia, rising from the ashes of another review, "II Cristiano d'Oggi"(The Christian Today), which ever since the end of 1972 had aroused quite a few perplexities and reserves in the Church environment and the political environments associated with it. Of this story we shall here underscore only two points: the essential characteristics of the review and its links with Palermo. The latter aspect is somewhat particular, inasmuch as "Segno", even though it was situated in and always concerned itself with Palermo, never enclosed itself in the city or in Sicily: its space was the country, with an ever-open eye for the problems of international life. 2. The period and the ideas amid which "Segno" saw the light of day are thus those of the 'seventies and, in their turn, were prepared by the previous decade. Years that from the ecclesial point of view were marked by the Council, and therefore by Gaudium et spes and the explosive force of the liturgical reform, which had brought the spontaneous ecclesial groups to life. At the social and cultural level, on the other hand, those years were marked by don Lorenzo Milani's Lettera ad un professoressa (Letter to a schoolmistress) and the Letter to Pipetta, by 1968 in die universities, the war in Vietnam and guerilla warfare in Latin America, with the theology of liberation associated with it. And therefore by critique of politics.

"the political unity of Catholics is abolished", but rather because it had "commanded" the Church to leave herself free of all mundane concerns of wielding power - be it even indirect, be it even for good purposes, for example, safeguarding democracy and the interests of the Church - in order to concern herself full-time with the Gospel, and therefore with the poor. In the end the Council had left the Church with the possibility of having but one party: the party of the poor. And if she had acquired authority and civil and cultural force, these had to be wholly spent for the poor. It will readily be understood just how new and subversive an approach of this kind must have seemed in Palermitan Catholic environments, that it aroused reserve and in some cases even hostility. "Segno", which in the meantime had come to life, found itself in the midst of the tempest. Quite a few people, understanding the sense of its cultural commitment and the issue at stake, sympathized with the review, that is to say, with the perspective of freedom and democracy that, from within the Church, it represented for Palermo and Sicily. 5. One characteristic of "Segno", possibly a specific one, was its laity. The review was constituted in the house of the Redemptorist Fathers, but independent and autonomous of them as a monthly of "Catholics and laymen". An intentionally ambiguous, but correct description. Because, even though historically "laymen" and "Catholics" in Italy represented two line-ups that were not only different but also hostile, today Catholics who base themselves on the Council can also be "laymen" without ceasing to be Catholics. The differences and dividing fences of former days have disappeared. Without traumas and in all tranquillity a Catholic can also be a layman. Rather, he cannot but be such, for example, in politics or in proposing or voting a law to regulate the phenomenon of divorce. Laity, as far as the review is concerned, no longer means, obviously, opposition to the Church, but simply responsible use of critical reason in all fields of knowledge and morality, society and politics. In Palermo and Sicily, "Segno" was de facto the expression of a group of men and women committed to common objectives that were really shared by believers and non-believers. Who is a believer? was the question asked in those years. Those who in words profess the faith, or those who concretely further the teachings of the Gospel? Who is a Catholic politician? Those who frequent the curias and are presented and sustained by the bishop at election time, or those who are effectively committed in favor of justice, liberty, peace, the dignity of the poor, of women, and for a future of freedom for the young? 6. The editorial group of "Segno" used Chapter 25 of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew as the criterion for reading the history of the Church. It was also sustained by the evangelical parabola (Mat 21, 28-32 of the father who has two sons, but who is effectively obeyed only by the younger, who is seeming disobedient in words.

What collapsed in those days was a Catholic pseudo-culture and the seemingly massive and often artificial wall that divided believers from non-believers: all of whom were invariably seen as "left-wingers". There came to be experimented a cultural and operative co-existence that changed not only the ideology, but also and more concretely everyday practice. One of the most significant effects of this position was the unitary character of the anti-Mafia movement of the 'eighties. The fact that in Palermo there was but one antiMafia movement, where believers and non-believers found themselves committed side by side to the attainment of one and the same objective: putting an end to the dominion of the Mafia and the culture that characterizes it. And this was yet another of the Council's qualifying teachings that "Segno" promoted by its various initiatives. In short, "Segno"'s Catholics took the Council as their guide. It was not by chance that in those years the young readers of the review were reading some of the Council's documents each week. The "segnisti" were laymen to the hilt, because they distinguished between faith and reason and assumed the responsibility of science and culture, as also of actual practice. They freed God of all responsibility that really behoved men. 7. "Segno" was a review of critique. A review that criticized in order to rejuvenate, to push towards new comprehensions and responsibilities. Passion for change was the most intimate spring of the cultural and political activity of "Segno". Purely Christian passion, as one might say. To the point of legitimately holding that a Christian who did not commit himself to changing the world in a progressive sense would not be a Christian. In this sense, for whatever meaning there may attach to this term, "Segno" was culturally a paper of the left. But only if left is not taken to mean, as it must not be taken to mean, atheist and unbelieving. As far as "Segno" was concerned, man or woman of the left meant only a seeker of freedom, especially for the poor, justice, equality, truth and peace: in the sense of Pacem in terris of John XXIII, a notoriously left-wing manifesto. 8. The central category of Chapter 25 of Matthew's Gospel is practice. Tell me what you do, what side you are on, the things and the people you are in favor of, and I will tell you whether you are a Christian. Not that orthodoxy is of no importance, quite the contrary. But it is life, practice and behavior that resolve and settle questions, sometimes even the theoretical ones. At least according to the Gospel. Another parabola that "converges" with the teachings of Matthew is that of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10, 3037), which in Palermo, in Via Badia, was the theme of a memorable talk given by Dom Giovanni Franzoni. The doctrine of the parabola is clear: you cannot pass beyond the problems of men, pretending not to see them. You have to stop, take them in, and come to grips with them. Consequently, the Christian faith, rather than being a mere title for

saving oneself, is a force for liberating others. The faith has to be spent in the city. Spent in the sense of consumed, run through, employed to the very last drop. With these convictions it was inevitable that "Segno" should confront itself with the problems of the city. It seemed beyond all doubt that the gravest and most urgent problem of Palermo and Sicily was the Mafia. We could not ignore it. Unlike the overwhelming majority of the Church, who behaved as if the Mafia did not exist, who would not perceive the infernal fire that burnt the men of Cosa Nostra and the city, "Segno'"s little group began to thunder against the Mafia and to say that the Mafia phenomenon was radically anti-Christian and that failure to oppose it was gravely sinful. "Segno" was the first Catholic review after the Council to say all this. While others remained silent. Or distinguished or understood, but passed on. To be precise, "II Cristiano d'Oggi" had already begun to talk about the Mafia in the 'sixties. In issue No.42, with a leading article entitled Without prophets, it had openly denounced the silence of the Church. Isolated, we were looking for contacts. There was no lack of collaboration, even from some (but very few) priests. 9. In the last thirty years, practically the entire life of "Segno", the fight against the Mafia has de facto been the reviews principal commitment. But only because the Mafia was the dominant problem. "Segno" was not conceived as a periodical of Mafia questions. The review found the Mafia there without looking for it. And thus there was practically no issue of the 'eighties that did not speak about the Mafia. It was the fault of Cosa Nostra if in those terrible years we did not succeed in publishing an issue that did not talk about the Mafia. In "Segno" there is everything: the anger, the sorrow, the indignation, the weeping, the desperation, the humiliation, the anguish, the widows, the orphans, the funerals, the homilies of the Archbishop, the press communiques of the trade unions, the parishes, the police unions, Catholic Action (but never of Opus Dei or Communion and Liberation), the political parties, first and foremost the Italian Communist Party. And integral documents with date, place and time of publication. And then studies and reflections: precise, rigorous, documented. In this way "Segno" was the expression not only of the little editorial group that for almost thirty years has written its leading articles only after having discussed, read and approved them. But rather the review of a large number of men and women who wrote, subscribed and met to fight a phenomenon and a power that offends Palermitans, Sicilians, Italians, humanity. You cannot understand "Segno" apart from this choral consent, ample though not vast, and not only Sicilian. 10. There is an aspect of the Palermitan anti-Mafia that the review often underscored and promoted: the fact that the civil and cultural opposition to Cosa Nostra cannot be a matter of principle, words, sterile, with the risk of running dry within itself. Attention was always concentrated on the propositional contents. De facto the paper

fought specifically for constructing something new: legality. It was a question of introducing esteem for the law into civil ethics, understanding the law as a common asset of primary importance, so that every care had to be dedicated to the acquisition of a proper sense and appreciation of it. A revolution in the fullest sense of the term. Opposing the Mafia does not just mean repudiating the violence of others, but promotion of observation of the law by all. If being Mafiosi means feeling and being concretely exempt from and outside the law, being anti-Mafia must mean publicly observing the law. Submission to the law as practice of non-Mafia culture. More practice of the law, less Mafia. More Mafia, less law observed. In this, as in many other things, Leonardo Sciascia, was a great master. The great writer kept affirming that the Mafia had to be fought with law. 11.The concrete experience of this motive was initiated in August 1987, when Leoluca Orlando formed his "pentacolor" government: the event was probably the most positive that Palermo had known in the second half of the twentieth century. "Segno", never given to easy infatuations and political fideisms, was among the first to grasp the importance of this experience understood as an exceptional opportunity for the city that could not be wasted. In fact, it constituted a turning point in the history of Palermo and the fight against the Mafia. It was not by chance that against it there came to be unleashed the opposition of political and cultural forces that have to be described as to say the least short-sighted. And of men and groups incapable of understanding ideas and processes not forming part of their own schemes. Apart from the results, undoubtedly open to question and at times disappointing, that Palermitan political experience, which turned Italy upside down, remains possibly the most significant the city has ever known. "Segno" sustained it, albeit not uncritically, dedicating it several monographic issues and numerous studies. 12. Another characteristic of "Segno" is its discretion. It lives precariously in the mist of hardships. It arrives more or less everywhere. Having sent out one issue, we start thinking about the next. It has known some moments of success, but all very ephemeral. Its financial sponsors are its subscribers, among whom Father Giuseppe Pugliesi was one of the most faithful. And then Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, willed into the Courthouse by Rocco Chinnici. It can rely on excellent collaborators, among them the late Marcello Cimino and Giuliana Saladino, who prepared the index of the first ten years of the review. Let us recall some of the important issues that made (albeit little) history. First of all "Segno" 35/1982, Sul fronte di Sagunto (On the front of Saguntum), the issue published immediately after the assassination of General Dalla Chiesa, which documents the mobilization of civil society and the first significant commitment of the Church. In it

you can also find the answers that 26 leading Catholics gave to some questions posed by the review, the first of which asked (remember that the date is 1982!) "whether the Mafia was a problem that the Church had to face". The issue also contains the report that G. Falcone and G. Turone made to the Castelgandolfo meeting in June 1982 and which we gave the title The Mafia in the sanctuary of the banks, though it was originally entitled Inquiry techniques in the Mafia field: we had obtained the text from Rocco Chinnici, who asked Giovanni Falcone for it. The other important document of that issue was the famous pastoral letter of Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini, integral text, entitled The true face of Sicily, in which the Archbishop denounced the "three factors that more than any others ... have contributed" to the organization of "a grave conspiracy to dishonor Sicily [...]: the Mafia, the Gattopardo, Danilo Dolci". Another important issue was "Segno" 45/1983, Verso la signoria dei missili (Towards the dominion of the missiles), dedicated to the movement for peace, not only in Sicily, against the installation of the missiles at Commiso. It also contains an important study by the historian Carlo Marino, Pacifist movement and popular struggles at the beginning of the 'fifties. "Segno" 66/1986, Processo alia Mafia (Mafia on trial), published the most significant parts of the ordinance of the investigating magistrates of the Court of Palermo that was to give rise to the maxi trial commenced on 10 February 1986; and also Cronaca di una mattanza (Account of a slaughter), the dramatic story of the dead who had stained Palermo with blood in those years. "Segno" 53/1984 published an Article by Aurelio Grimaldi, Viaggio in un girone della citta violenta (Voyage in a circle of the violent city), on which Marco Risi based his film Mery per sempre (Mery forever). "Segno" 93/1988, Palermo oltre Sagunto (Palermo beyond Saguntum), was the issue of Palermo's political turn guided by Leoluca Orlando, but prepared by decades of democratic struggle by the left for the liberation of the city and Sicily from Mafia dominion. "Segno" 101/1989 published a correspondence between the Vatican Secretariate of State and Cardinal Ruffini on the theme of the Mafia and the Ciaculli massacre of 1963. "Segno" 209/1999 was a great monographic issue dedicated to Leonardo Sciascia. 13. In 1995 "Segno" brought to life the Alfonsian Weeks, an initiative of a cultural character that takes place each year in the last week of September. They are opened in the Sala delle Lapidi (Hall of the Inscription Tablets) of Palazzo delle Aquile , to underscore that the event is closely connected with the city. In actual fact, however, they could be opened anywhere and maintain the same significance. The first Alfonsian Week was dedicated to the them Una cultura mite per la citta (A gentle culture for the city), a request for peaceful civic relations, governed by reason,

liberated from the acrimony that tends to poison them. The year after it considered trust, understood as the fundamental virtue of civil life. The 1999 topic was repentance, seen as an anthropologic force that cannot but concern all of us. The 1997 theme was Religione violenza vangelo (Religion, Violence, Gospel). A number of priests had kept visiting an arrested Mafioso to convert him: a behavior that was equivocal and specious and brought out some not very convincing aspects of a pastoral practice that was far from transparent. It was sustained that there was a difference between religion and Gospel. As if to say that a Mafioso could be religious without having anything in common with the Gospel. The theme Dio, chi e, dov'e? (Who is God, where is he?) was tackled by the fifth Week , the interlocutors including, among others, the great Lutheran theologian Jiirgen Moltmann. In September 2000 we talked about the poor: because the poor come immediately after God. In 2001 we came to grips with the theme of the "uselessness" of Christianity, to draw attention to the delicacy of and respect for the mystery of God, which nobody should ever dare to put into his service, not even for so-called good purposes. Among the rapporteurs of the Alfonsian Weeks we have had Massimo Cacciari, Marciano Vidal, Gherardo Colombo, Massimo D'Alema, Furio Colombo, to cite only a few of the best known and appreciated personalities. 14.Today the review is face to face with new and difficult problems. The Mafia question, though terribly identical and monotonous, has relatively new and elusive characteristics, as is typical of all complex phenomena. The Mafia has a long history and it is simply impossible not to be on one's guard and suspicious where this criminal organization is concerned. One must be particularly careful to avoid the facile vice of illuminism applied to the Mafia. An almost unpardonable ingenuity that nobody, especially a Sicilian, must ever commit. Lastly, "Segno" is a useful review: and that is one thing that can be said without any shadow of doubt. Whoever wants to know in detail what happened in Palermo in the course of these last thirty years, must necessarily turn to it. There he will find a world of passions and intelligence, at times exalting. Above all, however, he will find the dream of an island and a world free of the humiliating power of the Mafia.

What model of Church to face the Mafia

by Cosimo Scordato

What was the perception that the Church had of the Mafia and what had been the Church's attitude towards it? What made it possible for such a phenomenon so profoundly anti-Christian in both its inspiration and its practice to take root in a Christian environment? What part was played by certain expressions of Mafia culture and practice that, though undoubtedly different, yet seem so very similar to a certain religiousChristian world? What can the Christian community do in concrete terms? These and similar questions have become more and more pressing in the reflections of the Italian Church and, more particularly, the Church in Southern Italy. Notwithstanding the good will of individual people and local churches, notwithstanding the pontifical pronouncements of the last few decades, and with all the undoubtedly greater awareness of the Christian community in the face of the Mafia emergency , we have to admit that we have not yet matured an ecclesial intervention that, as the Pope had suggested, could be considered "specific, original, concrete and efficacious". Exploring the space for a "Christian approach", i.e. capable of intertwining with and yet distinguishing itself from other approaches , has become ever more essential to safeguard the peculiarity of the diaconate that the Church is called upon to offer to the world in which it lives. It is not a matter of chance that recourse should be had to theology in this context, for theology is the critical instrument of ecclesial reflection. But, given the size of the available Mafia biography , we shall limit ourselves to an initial working definition:
"Mafia is a series of criminal organizations among which Cosa Nostra is the most important, but not the only one that act within a vast and ramifiied relational context, configuring a system of violence and illegality aimed at the accumulation of capital and the acquisition and wielding of power, that avail themselves of a cultural code and enjoy a certain social consensus".

Here, indeed, we come face to face with various definition possibilities that reflect different cognitive and interpretative itineraries; this very fact makes it necessary to adopt a multidisciplinary approach, seeing the problem in various perspectives; and yet one can nowadays note a certain convergence as regards the constitutive data of the Mafia association.

1. What model of Church? If the Church does not want to exhaust her task in the role of a civil religion, it becomes urgent to undertake a reflection that will take its cue from a re-thinking of the Church's very identity at the historic and concrete level; historical experience has clearly shown that, notwithstanding the gradually growing awareness of the Church, there remain disquietening interweavings within the Christian community; so that the next step cannot but be a radical re-thinking of the Church's image and her relationship with society.
"The question that the sore of the Mafia raises for the Sicilian Church is not that of a sermon against the Mafia, a vigorous denunciation of its evil. It is rather something that is more profound and, at the same time, very simple. Without enlarging the Church's faults, without resolving this distorted religious mentality in a simplicist manner in the responsibility of the Church, it remains true that the Church must come to grips with the question, must keep vigil on herself not only in depth, but also in the simplicity of her road, which is nothing other than that of the essentiality and radicality of following the crucified Christ, contemplated... "

The need for re-thinking the Church model is explicitly assumed by G. Mazzillo who - highlighting the inadequacy of the juridico-hierarchical and mysterico-charismatic ecclesial models, which have indirectly rendered possible the persistence of the Mafia phenomenon, proposes as a true alternative the design and practice of what he calls the historico-liberating model.
"According to the historico-liberating model, the Church is the People of God on the march with Christ and with men and receives and shares the needs and the hopes of all and, first and foremost, the poor. "

If the Church wants to avoid the risk of slipping on reality, she has to move between prophetic denunciation and the practical purposes of bearing witness.
"Recognizing that sin is not a simple personal or individual dimension, but also a social structure and anti-solidarity pact, the prophetic denunciation must be accompanied by a pact of solidarity and love that is a concrete project and not just vaguely spiritual or an exhortation. "

This time attention has to be concentrated on rendering concrete the community inasmuch as it is committed to translating into the space of solid visibility the true response and alternative to the being and acting of the Mafiosi, and conferring credit and strength not only upon denunciation, but even more upon the capacity of factual announcement, on new and creative gestures of the community. Within this radical rethinking of being Church, we should like to explicit some particularly central aspects of our theme.

2.1 Power in the Church First of all, it has to be clearly affirmed that every form of Constantinism has to be seen as a disguised form of paganism, because the witness of the Church, just like that of Jesus, has to be put 'before' power and not 'by means of" power and dominion; on account of her propositional aspect, the Church, characterized by her eschatological reserve and contagious memory, living her faith as the primary principle of critique of every theory and every practice, cannot assume and legitimize any institutional models
and political formulas, but "gives form to practice as tension to produce and develop ever more numerous and qualified conceptual coordinates and practices in which man can be conceived as a free being, legitimate possessor of the reason of end in the ample intra-mundane and intra-historical horizon and true protagonist of projects that orientate towards the novum and imply going beyond. "

In observing the ecclesial phenomenon, without in any way belittling her mysterico-sacramental aspects, one must never forego the instruments of critique; as compared with the twofold stumbling block of those who do not in any way want to objectivate the way they behold the Church and those who observe her by means of a mere transcription of socio-political categories, it is preferable to establish a fecund hermeneutical circuit in which the organization of social life and its thematization with rules of the game and specific limitations capable of safeguarding the minimum conditions of coexistence is assumed as opportunity for re-thinking the ecclesial space and, vice versa, the Church could offer the diaconate of her reflection wherever such ecclesiological categories as service, charisma and others could enrich human comprehension of community life. The following conditions are proposed within the postulate of controllability and the minimum conditions of the theory of the personalistic political community and could lead to the re-thinking of ecclesial life. The members of the community must perceive themselves as a multipolar "we"; a political community with personalistic consciousness is in the trim of dialogue; is the creator of human and humanizing values; turns each and all its members into protagonists of the community's history; realizes justice in accordance with the logic statute of love (which excludes hate, but does not exclude struggle); lastly, it fights against every type of alienation of man. It should be expressly recalled that the concrete realization of all this runs the historical risk of obscurity and turbidity. 2.1.1 For a non-violent and creative communication Exercise of power in the Church has to be observed with a two fold attention suggested by the ambit of communication; the first is that the incumbent of any ecclesial

ministry should divest himself- or at least re-dimension his personal point of view and assume that of the community, thus avoiding the risk of absolutizing his personal perspective for no other reason than the fact that he has the task of deciding in the name of all; the second concerns the development of conceptual forms, interpretative structures capable of receiving complexity to an ever greater extent and therefore capable of accepting the multiplicity of different points of view and approaches. We could develop within the life of the Church the very methodologies that, when applied to the reception of confessional differences, could open ample space for intra-ecclesial pluralism. With a view to opening up adequate operational horizons, we should also adopt indications that, though born and conceived in other conceptual contexts, could facilitate the progress of a critical re-thinking. 2.2Sacramental practice It is well known that even Mafiosi enjoy ample access to sacramental life; apart from comments proposed in connection with canonical discipline and also the need for an evangelization to integrate the process of sacramentalization that is often mere routine, we should like to draw attention to the radical alternative that the sacraments represent vis-a-vis any kind of Mafia ideal. The first three sacraments (baptism, confirmation and communion) are conceived, in analogy with the human condition (at birth man is washed. Perfumed and nourished), as gestures with which God, through the mediation of the minister of the Church, purifies and restores the transparency of his image and likeness (baptism), strengthens, perfumes and replenishes his gifts (confirmation), and nourishes with himself and has himself assimilated (communion). Very well, going beyond stereotyped rituality, we have to rediscover the beauty and the wealth of the symbolic gestures with which God reveals and donates himself to man in the celebrative event, which ought to constitute the basis that founds and inspired the whole of Christian life. God, in fact, makes himself known as father-mother-brother who stoops over the life of his creature and expresses his relationship of love by taking on loan the tenderness of the mother (or the father) who washes her child, perfumes it and nourishes it at her breast. There is nothing heavy in the simple transparency of this divine gestural expressiveness that, seeing the God has taken it from human language and given it back into the hands of the Church, should become the style of life of the community. Jesus' (baptismal) invitation to his disciples to wash each other's feet has to be seen in its regal capacity of inspiring each and every gesture of the Church when this originary and eschatological divine tenderness constitutes the starting point.

2.3 Poor Church or Church of the poor Ecclesial comprehension for the condition of the poor, combined with the choice of poverty, represents the true antidote to the potential of violence accumulated in the course of history, whereas quite the contrary the wealth of ends and intentionality in human relations constitutes the slow alternative to this violence. On the one hand, we have to overcome the removal with which the society of wellbeing and economic power keeps everything that could disturb its imperturbability at arm's length. Face to face with the conviction that poverty, misery are not natural facts like rain or the setting of the sun, but rather fruit of a history and political choices that prolong its duration, we need not only good will and pious desires, but also readiness to change the course of things, utilizing all the elements of analysis and intervention that reflect the sensitivity and greater awareness of our day and age. On the other hand, every local community has to fall silent (some time or other) and hearken to the multiplicity of laments that rise from within it. Listening to these voices implies a twofold response: the first in the direction of an institutional involvement (promotion of adequate services) with the possibility of assessing the suitability of a policy on the basis of the choices made in this field; the other in the direction of a selfinvolvement of the community who, giving priority to the most urgent needs, takes steps to commit its best resources of people and means. In this context even the reconstruction and interpretation of history by the Church has an obligatory point of observation: looking at historical events from the point of view of the oppressed, the last. Hitherto all historical reconstruction have been far too similar to the narrations, the gestures of the world in which there are celebrated personages, wars, victories, defeats, conflicts of power and the like, but where are the people to whose laments God lent his ears and with respect to whom he spoke his definitive word? And where is the narration of the passion of the Lord and, in Him, every passion of suffering humanity? Have we hearkened to the shout of all those who have suffered violence? 3. For a cultural shift What we have in mind here is the importance that attaches to the cultural role of the ecclesial community within a society in which even the Church is running the risk of becoming squashed and flattened; on the one hand, indeed, we must not lack the critical consciousness of a searching look that will see the many myths (accumulation of money and profit, ambition of hegemony in various ambits, concentration of resources, etc.) the fount of the unbalances that offend the person, social coexistence to the point of lack of international equilibrium, in this context the Church must not fail to speak

the word of denunciation that often concerns the very countries of Christian origin; on the other hand, the Church must cultivate the so-called 'eschatological reserve' in making a distinction between every historical realization and the goal of the kingdom of God; by means of this reserve we create the conditions for the prophetic attitude that does not remain that does not remain imprisoned by the dazzling allure of contemporary conquests, but rather, looking at the world from the point of view of eschatological perfection, tends to highlight and underscore the undeniable limits that are associated with even the best projects. In this difficult task of discernment and accompaniment, we have to re-think the various interventions of the Church's pastoral work (catechesis, popular celebrations, etc.) and highlight the need for combining evangelical choices with the places and times of Christian life.

The Sicilian Reinassance Institute Statement of purpose

Sicily is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Following decades of Mafia control, Palermo and other communities over the island have been making in recent years a significant comeback to lawfulness and democratic culture, based on a revival of citizenship participation and commitment. In a world where organized crime and corruption have become major impediments to democratic, political and economic development, the renaissance process which is going on in Sicily even through difficulties and resistances is a shining example of how communities can work together to reduce crime and corruption and enhance the quality of life of their people. The Sicilian Renaissance Institute (SRI) is designed to foster civic renewal throughout the island and to provide information and inspiration to interested regions and communitites around the world. Specifically, the Institute will: facilitate an understanding of the recent Sicilian experience in this field through publications, audiovisual material, seminars and educational exchange; and co-operate with institutions, communities and individual in Sicily and elsewhere to encourage the adoption of civic initiatives designed to strengthen a culture of lawfulness and democracy aiming at preventing and mitigating the effects of crime and corruption. The Sicilian Renaissance Institute (also named Istitutoper il Rinascimento Siciliand) was founded in Palermo on November 29, 1999 as a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization by a group of Italian and American civil society leaders. The SRI is based in Palermo, Italy, and it maintains an office in Washington D.C., USA. Its policy and direction is set by an international Board of Directors. The members of the current SRI Board of Directors are: President: Hon. Prof. Leoluca Orlando, member of the Sicilian Parliament; former Mayor of Palermo and member of the European and Italian Parliaments; Vice President: Dr. Rita Borsellino, Vice President of LIBERA (Italian national consortium of civic associations); Counselors: Prof. Roy Godson, President, The National Strategy Information Center, Washington, D.C.; Professor at the Georgetown University; and Andrea Scrosati, President, Media Network (Italian national public relations firm). Honorary President is Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, Palermo Archbishop Emeritus. Honorary Director for Culture is Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature and Professor at Emory University.

Activities completed
Ever since its foundation the SRI has carried out an intense research and documentation activity on the ongoing process of civic renewal in Sicily, and has subsequently disseminated worldwide its findings about the principles that have inspired the initiatives undertaken in this field by the various components of Sicily's civil society, as well as their effective practices and the results obtained. This knowledge-spreading effort was made first of all by means of two publications that the SRI prepared, printed and distributed on a worldwide scale to international organizations; government agencies; public bodies; foundations; civic, religious and educational associations; newspapers and journals; as well as to individual politicians, educators, trade unionists and other civic leaders in many countries interested in the promotion of a culture of lawfulness as an effective complementary strategy to prevent and reduce the effects of crime and corruption.. The first of these, originally published and distributed in February 2000, was printed in two 34-page versions (one, in Italian, entitled "II Rinascimento di Palermo: Fatti e opinioni"; the other, in English, entitled "The Palermo Renaissance: A Real-life Civics Course'). This publication was subsequently updated and reprinted in October 2000, with a total run of 16,000 copies for each version. The second was a 70-page publication, likewise printed in two versions (in Italian, "Per un cultura di levalita: il Rinascimento di Palermo"; in English, "Creating a Culture of Lawfulness: The Palermo, Sicily Renaissance") distributed since December 2000 in more than 5000 copies. The contents of the latter publication, together with other information, were also inserted in the SRI Internet site, www.sicilianrenaissance.org. In addition to the above, the Sicilian experience in the promotion of a culture of lawfulness was also illustrated and discussed by SRI representatives at numerous highlevel international conferences, seminars and meetings. Among these mention might here be made of the following: the Tenth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime held in Vienna in April 2000; the biannual Convention of the American Federation of Teachers, held in Philadelphia in July 2000, in the course of which the SRI President, Leoluca Orlando, received the AFT Human Rights Award "Bayard Rustin"; the Georgetown University's Executive Leadership Seminar on the theme "Strategic

Approaches to Transnational Crime and Civil Society", held in Washington, DC, in July 2000; the International Leaders Forum of the National Democratic Institute of the United States, held in Los Angeles in August 2000; the First National Conference on "Building Sound Communities in the Transition of Mexico" held in Mexico City in January 2001; the meeting of the Young President's Organization International held in Venice in June 2001;
the eighth edition of the "Rencontres Internationales du Memorial pour la Prevention des Conflits", on the theme "Trafics et mafias: les Etats impuissant?", held in Caen,

France, in October 2001 ; the ceremony held at St. Petersburg, Russia, in October 2001, during which the SRI President was awarded with the Puskin Prize 2001; the symposium on the theme "Fostering a Culture of Lawfulness on the Island of Ireland" held at Gleneagles, Scotland, in November 2001; the participation to the United Nations experts meeting on crime prevention, held in Vancouver, Canada, January 2002; the participation to the series of seminars and conferences on "Culture of lawfulness: the Sicilian model" organized by the German Universities in February 2002; the participation to the conference "Europe: a cure against the mafia", held in Antibes, France, in March 2002; the participation to the memorial ceremonies of the six months anniversary of the tragic events of September the 11th: "Response, Rebuilding and Reconciliation", organized by Columbia University, New York on the 1 lth -12th of March 2002; the participation to the international conference "Building Sound CommunitiesSecurity: a commitment for everybody" organized by the cultural Institute "Ludwig von Mises", Mexico City, 14th-18th of March 2002; the participation to the Eurasian-American Seminar on crime and terrorism prevention: "the spaces of crime, corruption and terrorism" organized by the magazine Limes, Rome, May 2002; participation to the seminar "Enhancing democracy: transatlantic perspectives of the role of educators", a joint initiative by The National Union of Teachers of England and Wales and American Federation of teachers, Stokerochford, UK, July 2002; participation to the European Conference on "Tackling terrorism - the role and the responsibilities of local Authorities", organised by the Chamber of local authorities of the Council of Europe, Luxembourg, September 2002; the lesson on "Culture of lawfulness and crime prevention: the role of the public administration" held at the Faculty of Economy of the Havana University in the framework of the training course for public managers, Cuba, September 2002;

participation to the II Euromoney Conference, organised by Euromoney Istitutional Investor, Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 2002. The concrete results obtained in Palermo in the struggle against organised crime were recognised by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations: in the last guidelines for the prevention of crime (February 2002) it indicates the necessity of actively promoting culture of lawfulness as a tool in this field. Our method of intervention is both simple and innovative: it is based on the "simple" communication of an experience without any direct intervention in the countries concerned: we rely on bilateral exchanges to enable social operators, journalists, teachers and religious authorities to become familiar with what has already been done in Palermo, assess these experiences and study possible ways in which they could be autonomously applied in their own reality. The sending out of our delegations or the presence of foreign delegations in Palermo and Sicily, appropriate publications and debates and seminars are the instruments for spreading knowledge of what has been done in Palermo, are moment of confrontation, stimulus and mutual enrichment, but always in the perspective of respect for and valorisation of the different cultures, the different reference values. A similar activity of illustrating the Sicilian experience in matters of education for lawfulness has also been performed by SRI representatives on numerous occasions when foreign leaders (government representatives, politicians, educators, professionals, businessmen, journalists, etc,) visited Palermo either in official delegations or working groups. The SRI also organized either directly or in collaboration with supporting institutions the following events intended to encourage the adoption of civic initiatives against organized crime in countries particularly at risk: a five-day seminar on the theme of "The Cultural Approach in the Fight Against Crime and Corruption" held in Palermo in May 2000 for an official delegation of the Republic of Georgia; an international three-day symposium on "The Role of Civil Society in the Fight Against Organized Crime: Global Implications of the Palermo Renaissance" held at Palermo in December 2000 as part of the official program of the High-Level Signing Conference for the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. Detailed reports on this theme were presented not only by leaders of the Sicilian renewal and the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, but also by authoritative representatives of such countries as Hong Kong, Botswana, Georgia, Mexico and the United States;

a five-day seminar on "Countering Crime Through Culture" held in Palermo in September 2001 for an official delegation from Mexico. In particular, intense activities were undertaken in the various cities of the United States of Mexico: indeed, in the light of the Palermitan experience, the Mexican government, basing recently decided to render the teaching of the culture of legality obligatory in all the elementary and basic schools.. Lastly, the Institute has carried out a series of activities intended to encourage civic renewal in other parts of Sicily, and in January 2000 promoted making also a considerable contribution to its actual organization a meeting in Palermo of representatives of Italian civil society that sought to maintain a high level of attention in the fight against the Mafia. In the course of 2002, the Institute is intensifying its activities aimed at promoting a culture of lawfulness in all parts of Sicily and, further, to expand the dissemination abroad of the effective practices and results of the cultural anticrime initiatives that have been, and will be, undertaken in this island by means of publications, audiovisual materials and other informational channels. The SRI is also planning a series of educational exchanges (in the form of seminars to be held in Sicily or participation of representatives of Sicily's civil society in conferences held abroad) with countries particularly interested in adopting a similar cultural approach in their struggle against organized crime, terrorism and corruption, among them Peru, Nigeria, El Salvador, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Albania. Furthermore, the Institute intends to collaborate with global institutions, as well as with governmental agencies and NGO's of other countries, particularly in the European area, with a view to adopting joint initiatives aimed at promoting civic education and a culture of lawfulness in various regions of the world.

Biographies

Salvatore Di Cristina, is Titular Bishop of Bilta and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Palermo. Born in 1937, completed his studies at the Palermo Archiepiscopal Seminary and was ordained priest in 1960, subsequently continuing at the Patristics Institute of the Lateran University, where he obtained his Doctorate in Theology and Patristic Sciences. For several years he was a teacher at the Palermo Seminary, where he performed various functions, and later became Dean of the Theological Faculty of Sicily. He set up and for ten years directed the Diocesan School of Basic Theology and is Consultor of the Roman Congregation for Catholic Education. At present is member of the Pastoral Secretariat of the Sicilian Episcopal Conference. Is Prelate of Honour of H.H. John Paul II and President (Ciantro) of the Cathedral's Metropolitan Chapter. Nino Fasullo, Redemptorist Father, taught philosophy and pedagogy in teacher-training colleges. At present is editor of "Segno", a review of political and theological culture that he founded in 1975. Among others, he prepared some of the shorter works of Alfonso de Liguori (1696-1787) for publication: "Degli obblighi de giudici, avvocati, accusatori e rei" (About the obligations of judges, attorneys, prosecutors and the guilty), 1998; "Maria Nostra Avvocata" (Mary Our Attorney), 2000. For the last eight years has organized the Alfonsian Weeks at Palermo each year. Cosimo Scordato, was born at Bagheria (Palermo) in 1948. Ordained priest in 1972, he is now a lecturer in theology at the Theological Faculty of Sicily. For many years he has dedicated himself to a project for the rehabilitation and moral renewal of Palermo's Albergheria quarter, where he is in charge of the "Saint Francis Saverio" Social Centre.

Published by/Stampa a cura di: The Sicilian Renaissance Institute Project Manager/Redazione:' Pietro Galluccio Translation from Italian/Traduzioni dall'italiano: Herbert Garrett Cover design/Grafica della copertina: Studio Triskeles, Palermo Printed by/stampato da: Tipografia Vivirito, Palermo August 2002 Agosto 2002