The bishop and the ball breaker saint

At a time when the Mafia are romanticized on HBO and "insurgents" are not called by their true name, i.e. murders of the innocent, and at a time when the fight over christmas ignores a tiny child who changed the world, perhaps this story should be told.

"And what if someone did something?"was Puglisi's favorite saying. and the story is of a simple parish priest who took on the Mafia, and how, after he was killed, the bishop took up the fight.

In the 1960s, Puglisi began his career as pastor in the tiny town of Godrana, in the hills 40 kilometers outside Palermo. When he arrived, there had been 15 murders in this village of scarcely more than 100 people, all related to a feud between two rival clans. Puglisi started going door-to-door, reading the gospel with people and talking about forgiveness. He encouraged small groups to meet together to pray and read the Bible, at first once a month, then every 15 days.

Eventually one of the women who had been hosting a group said to Puglisi that she did not feel she could carry on until she had forgiven the mother of her son’s assassin. After much time, effort and prayer, Puglisi arranged a reconciliation between the two women,...