A good man passes

[fpb]

Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, Archbishop emeritus of Palermo, has died at 88. To people of my country and generation, this man stands for a time not to be forgotten: the time when, in the middle of terrible shocks and difficulties, Sicily and all Italy began to turn the corner in the struggle against the Mafia - accepting that it was a struggle, accepting that there was nothing inevitable about the Mafia, and accepting that it could be defeated. Cardinal Pappalardo himself was a Sicilian of the Sicilians in everything, beginning with his name - a name simply impossible this side of the Straits. And that was exactly the immensely important point. That a man with his name, his accent, his character - Sicilian to the point of stereotype - should assail the power of crime Sunday after Sunday, in and out of season, and should take powerful, practical steps to defy it, made an enormous impact on both sides of the Straits of Messina. Where previous archbishops had been at best accepting and at worst cooperating with the Mafia - in the name of the fatalistic belief that it could not be uprooted from Sicilian soil - Pappalardo was the first public figure to defy it and denounce it. His omilies and speeches became famous, and the younger generation of politicians and judges that arose in Sicily in the eighties, no longer in collaboration with, but in open revolt against, armed crime, all owned him as an example and master. I have no idea where he stood in the great internal issues of the Church with which I am personally very concerned, but his role in the history of Italy is, as far as I know, wholly positive. In fact, one is tempted to draw a parallel with the death of another famous old man who passed away in a Chilean military hospital at roughly the same time as Cardinal Pappalardo died in his monastic retreat... but why be unkind? God rest his soul and bring Him to everlasting light.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Understand, even without the idiotic American intervention (one of a whole series of catastrophic decisions taken during WWII and afterwards, which damaged relationships with Europe for ever), it is likely enough that the Mafia, kept down by the military power of the Fascist state, would have raised its head during the last couple of years of war, with the Italian state reduced to a shadow and civil war and German occupation in much of the country. But the Americans all but legitimated the Mafia, which therefore had a much easier life. At the time of Mori, hundreds of mafiosi had fled Sicily for America; now a lot of them - beginning with Lucky Luciano, an illegal immigrant if I remember correctly - came back, with all the know-how and capital they had accumulated in the States.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Tell me more about American intervention, the kind you call "idiotic."