Free Republic

A bishop in Sicily has banned known mafia criminals from acting as godfathers at baptisms in churches in his diocese. Michele Pennisi, bishop of Monreale, near Palermo, said Friday he had issued a decree to that effect in a bid to challenge any notion that the bosses of organized crime have a paternalistic side to them. “The mafia has always taken the term ‘Godfather’ from the Church to give its bosses an air of religious respectability, whereas in fact the two worlds are completely incompatible,” the bishop told AFP. Pennisi’s diocese includes Corleone, a vendetta-haunted village inland from Palermo which...

For years, it was rumored that Cosa Nostra, N’drangheta, and other Sicilian and Calabrian gangs were involved in helping Muslim “migrants” travel to Sicily and then Italy for a fee. Now with the manufactured “refugee crisis,” Sicily has been completely overrun by African and Pakistani Muslims- who are now forming their own gangs and attacking the locals. The worst is in Palermo, one of the “mafia centers” of Sicily. This story focuses on one particular Gambian man, who seems to have been randomly targeted by a petty “soldier.” However, it misses the bigger picture- this in an invasion and the...

Mafia bosses have 'declared war' against migrants on the holiday paradise of Sicily as one thousand new arrivals pour on to the island every week. The feared Cosa Nostra are desperate to maintain supremacy after African crime gangs arrived with the migrants - and they are engaged in a deadly turf war. An innocent Gambian man was shot through the head by an assassin in broad daylight sparking fears of a wider bloodbath. Mayor Leoluca Orlando told MailOnline: 'Palermo is no longer an Italian town. It is no longer European. You can walk in the city and feel like you’re...

Maryland's newly ordained first female Episcopal bishop fatally crashed into and killed a bicyclist before fleeing just two days after the Christmas holiday. Police on Saturday said a 58-year-old female motorist drove away from a scene of mangled metal beside a fatally injured man taking his final breaths--41-year-old father and custom bike maker Tom Palermo. A letter from the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland revealed Sunday that it was their No. 2 leader, Bishop Heather Cook, who disappeared from the fatal crash before finally returning to take responsibility. Meanwhile, photos from the scene can attest there was no way Cook could...

In an email to the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton has identified the driver of the car involved in the fatal bicycle crash on Roland Avenue yesterday as Bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook, ordained in September to serve as Bishop Suffragan, the No. 2 spot in the diocese. “I am distressed to announce that Bishop Heather E. Cook was involved in a traffic accident Saturday afternoon, Dec. 27, that resulted in the death of bicyclist Thomas Palermo, 41,” Bishop Sutton wrote today, noting that Cook did not sustain any injuries. Bishop Sutton also...

An intruder armed with a gun was shot by a homeowner Tuesday afternoon in Palermo, according to the Butte County Sheriff's Office. Sgt. Matt Keeling said the Sheriff's Office responded to a report of shots fired a little after 2 p.m. at a house on the 6900 block of Upper Palermo Road. "When I arrived, I found an individual in the kitchen on the floor and unresponsive," Keeling said at the scene. "At this time, we don't know anything else."

MILWAUKEE — On May 27, about 150 workers from Palermo’s Pizza factory here, representing three-fourths of its production workers, met to sign a petition saying they wanted to unionize. They say they gave the petition to management two days later. Around the same time, Palermo’s delivered letters to 89 immigrant workers, asking them to provide documentation verifying that they had the right to work in the United States. Ten days later, almost all of them were fired. Labor organizers assert that Palermo’s, one of the nation’s largest producers of frozen pizza, was trying to snuff out a unionization drive in...

A bomb at a vocational school in the port city of Brindisi on the Adriatic coast in Southern Italy has killed two students and injured another five as classes were preparing to start this morning as reported by David Batty for The Guardian. The school was named in honor of the wife of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone after both were slain almost exactly twenty years ago as reported by Nick Squires for The Telegraph: "the prosecutor, his wife and their three bodyguards were killed on May 23 1992, when the Sicilian Mafia planted half a tonne of explosives on the...

In Palermo, Sicily hundreds of Italians gathered today "to commemorate murdered anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino 18 years after his death" as reported by David Willey for BBC News: "He was killed by a car bomb in one the most brutal attacks on Italian justice. * * * After several trials, the truth about who organised the murder of Borsellino, and fellow judge Giovanni Falcone the same year, remains elusive."

One of the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American Jewish passenger in 1985 has been released after more than 23 years in jail, officials said Thursday. Youssef Magied al-Molqui left prison in Palermo, Sicily, on Wednesday and was transferred to a holding center for immigrants in nearby Trapani while officials work to expel him, police in the Sicilian capital said.