During his message on Sunday, Pope Francis took a few moments to address a different crowd than those gathered in St. Peter’s Square—the mafia. He told believers that “we must pray to the Lord to make these mafiosi convert to God,” in a country where organized crime families make hundreds of billions of dollars a year. In Italy, crimes like prostitution, extortion rings and drug trafficking are still major problems fueled by powerful mafia groups. The Pope said, “My thoughts are with the suffering of women, men and also children who are exploited by the many mafias who make them slaves, through prostitution, through many social pressures” …
