Pope Francis has urged mobsters to abandon their evil ways, particularly the exploitation of people in trafficking rackets such as prostitution.
The call from the Pope comes after he paid tribute to a courageous priest murdered by the Sicilian Mafia as a martyr.
According to the New York Daily News, Francis issued his call to organized crime members to convert their hearts, a day after the beatification of the Reverent Giuseppe (Pino) Puglisi in Palermo, Italy.
Francis told a crowd in St. Peter's Square that the Mafia killed the Reverent Giuseppe Puglisi because he tried to keep youths from being recruited by mobsters.
Puglisi was gunned down a few months after Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to Sicily and angrily called on mobsters to convert their hearts.
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