Police Chief orders 'no public funeral' for Ndrangheta boss

TURIN –The Turin Police Chief Massimo Gambino has ordered no church service, no funeral procession and a private burial for Ndrangheta boss Domenico Belfiori who died at age 73 while serving a prison sentence for the murder of leading public prosecutor Bruno Caccia in 1983. 

 Ndrangheta is the Calabrian version of the Sicilian Mafia and considered the most powerful organized crime structure in Italy working closely with Latin American drug cartels and controlling tens of thousands of legitimate businesses set up with drug money around the peninsula. 

 Belfiore had been sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering the murder of Caccia, shot and killed by a hit squad on June 26 1983. He never repented. 

 The founder of Libera, an organization that promotes outreach and protests against the Mafia and other Italian organized crime, Don Luigi Ciotti intervened when he heard that Belfiore was due to have a funeral in the Madonna del Loreto parish in Chivasso. 

 Ciotti was interviewed by La Stampa and gave the following statement. “Praying for a deceased person is an act of charity that should not be denied to anyone because God's mercy is greater than our sins. But celebrating a solemn mass for an unrepentant mafioso isn't just prayer. It's placing a man of blood on the same altar where we celebrate the saints. Is this what we want to convey to our communities?” Ciotti continued “a church funeral for someone who has killed and hasn't repented isn't just a pastoral error. It's yet another wound inflicted on the victims' families. It says to those who have lost a father, a mother, a brother at the hands of the mafia, 'your pain can be put aside.' We must apologize for this.” Ciotti then added that "being a Church today in a land of mafia means having the courage to prophesy, even if it's uncomfortable. 'I mind my own business' is the mafia's best ally. When a community remains silent, when a parish priest chooses the easiest route so as not to displease anyone, it creates fertile ground for evil to survive. The funeral in Belfiore is not an isolated case: it's a symptom of a gray area that still exists."

 The parish priest Don Tonino also made a statement regarding the decision around Belfiore’s funeral. He stated "I didn't know who that man was. I am aware of the Pope 's excommunication of the Mafiosi , but I have received no objection from the Curia. “I will entrust him to God as a sinner, but it is He who must judge him." 

 The death of Belfiore reminds us of the life of Bruno Caccia taken too soon at the age of 66.