Pope Benedict XVI denounced the "evil" of Italy's organised crime as he celebrated an open-air mass before tens of thousands of pilgrims in the heartland of the Sicily's Mafia.
Benedict's first visit to the island since becoming pope in 2005 raised hopes among campaigners that he will help their struggle against the ever-pervasive Cosa Nostra.
He called on Sicilians, dogged by Mafia extortion and intimidation, to be "ashamed of evil, which offends God and man" and for the effects of organised crime which "injures the civil and religious community" to be brought into the open....
Dr. Alan Cairns | 8/3/2009
