THE Vatican yesterday defended Pope Benedict's decision to avoid direct condemnation of organised crime during a trip to southern Italy, where the Camorra are particularly active.
The Pope made a one-day trip to Pompeii to say a Mass and pray the rosary at a sanctuary in the modern section of the city whose adjacent ancient ancestor was buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
In his speeches, Benedict did not use th
e words organised crime or Camorra, as the local Mafia is known. He made only an oblique reference when he said prayer is "a spiritual weapon in the struggle against evil and every form of violence."
Questioned by reporters, a Vatican spokesman said the Pope had intentionally avoided the word Camorra.
"The trip has a strictly spiritual dimension and it was out of respect for the fact that most people from this area are honest and not members of organised crime," the spokesman said.
"The Pope preferred suggesting the positive energy through which the Camorra can be defeated," he said, noting he did speak out against organised crime in a visit to Naples in 2007.
The local newspaper, Il Mattino, ran a headline wrongly predicting that the Pope would make appeals against organised crime and in support of jobs in an area of high unemployment.
Modern Pompeii is one of a string of bleak, run-down towns in the Naples hinterland and in the shadow of Vesuvius where the criminal gangs have a strong presence.
The Camorra, which makes its money in extortion rackets, drug trafficking, and smuggling, was recently the subject of a hit movie Gomorra .
The title of the film and book is a play on the word Camorra and the Italian spelling of Gomorrah, the sinful city which God destroyed along with Sodom in the Old Testament.
