PALERMO, Sicily – Honouring a priest shot at point-blank range by the Mafia, Pope Francis insisted that true happiness and a real change in Sicilian society will come only when people love and care for one another rather than trying to grab as much money and power as they can.

PALERMO, Italy – Hollywood precedent notwithstanding, an Italian archbishop has announced that known members of the mafia cannot be godparents for the Catholic sacraments of baptism or confirmation.

VATICAN CITY – Frequently an outspoken critic against organized crime, Pope Francis again came out with harsh words for those involved in the mafia and other criminal activities, which he said are “stained with blood” and go directly against the faith.

ROME - Television programs, coffee bars, Italian Twitter accounts and the corridors of political power were abuzz Aug. 20-21 with news and commentary about the extravagance surrounding the funeral of the reputed boss of an organized crime ring in Rome.

VATICAN CITY - The bishop of a southern Italian diocese has issued new directives aimed at keeping the mafia out of this year's Easter processions.

ROME - Catholic bishops from the southern Italian region of Calabria have broken their silence and spoken out against the “inhumane” power of the Mafia that dominates their poverty-stricken area.

ROME - Half a dozen men stand nonchalantly in front of a grubby building on one of Rome’s busiest streets as cars whizz past. They stiffen whenever a stranger approaches.

ROME - The Italian bishops' conference has sent a message of solidarity to Fr. Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera, a network of Italian anti-Mafia associations, following an apparent threat to his life from a Sicilian Mafia boss.

VATICAN CITY - The godfather who stands up for a child's baptism one day and spends the rest of the week running a brutal crime ring unfortunately is not the stuff of movies.

VATICAN CITY - It began with the murder of an innocent three-year-old boy who burned to death in his grandfather’s car in a Mafia ambush in January. Pope Francis was so shaken by the death of Nicola “Coco” Campolongo that he spoke out against the ferocity of the crime and those behind it.

VATICAN CITY - A bishop in Calabria has ordered an end to all religious processions in his diocese after 30 men carrying a large statue of Mary and hundreds of people accompanying the statue paused and bowed in front of the house of a presumed mafia boss.

ROME - Only two weeks after Pope Francis announced he was excommunicating the Mafia, a religious procession in southern Italy has provoked uproar after paying homage to a convicted mobster.

ROME - After a pledge by Pope Francis to “excommunicate” mobsters from the Catholic Church, an archbishop in southern Italy has proposed a 10-year ban on naming godparents at baptisms and confirmations as a way to stop the Mafia from spreading its influence.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will travel to the heartland of the Italian mafia for the first time June 21, visiting the southern town where a three-year-old was murdered in a local drug war earlier this year.