Pino Puglisi
| Blessed Giuseppe Puglisi | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Priest; Martyr | |
| Born |
September 15, 1937 Brancaccio, Palermo, Kingdom of Italy |
| Died | September 15, 1993 (aged 56) Brancaccio, Palermo, Italy |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 25 May 2013, Foro Italico 'Umberto I', Palermo, Sicily, Italy by Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi (on behalf of Pope Francis) |
| Major shrine | Palermo Cathedral, Palermo |
| Feast | 21 October |
| Attributes | Cassock |
Blessed Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpiːno puʎˈʎiːzi]; September 15, 1937 – September 15, 1993) was a Roman Catholic priest in the rough Palermo neighbourhood of Brancaccio. He openly challenged the Mafia who controlled the neighbourhood, and was killed by them on his 56th birthday. His life story has been retold in a book, Pino Puglisi, il prete che fece tremare la mafia con un sorriso (2013), and portrayed in a film, In the Sunlight (2005).
Puglisi was born in Brancaccio, a working-class neighbourhood in Palermo (Sicily), into a family of modest means. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a dressmaker. He entered the seminary at age sixteen. Following ordination, he worked in various parishes, including a country parish afflicted by a bloody vendetta.
Puglisi was ordained as a priest on 2 July 1960 by Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini from Palermo. Ruffini regarded Communism as a greater threat than the Mafia. He once questioned the Mafia's very existence. To a journalist's question of "What is the Mafia?" he responded: "So far as I know, it could be a brand of detergent." This denial persuaded Puglisi of the need to challenge church authorities. "We can, we must criticize the church when we feel it doesn't respond to our expectations, because it's absolutely right to seek to improve it," he said. With his trademark humour, Puglisi added: "But we should always criticize it like a mother, never a mother-in-law!"
In 1990, Puglisi returned to his old quarter Brancaccio and became the priest of San Gaetano's Parish. He spoke out against the Mafia who controlled the area and opened a shelter for underprivileged children. Puglisi had been offered other parishes by the local curia, in less troublesome Palermo neighborhoods, but he opted for San Gaetano.
With little support from the Palermo archdiocese, Puglisi tried to change his parishioners' mentality, which was conditioned by fear, passivity and omerta – imposed silence. In his sermons, he pleaded to give leads to authorities about the Mafia's illicit activities in Brancaccio, even if they could not actually name names. He refused their monies when offered for the traditional feast day celebrations, and would not allow the Mafia "men of honour" to march at the head of religious processions.
...
Wikipedia