Is the Pope a...

So the Pope, with the help of the big ‘G’, is going to make them an offer they can’t refuse. About bloody time too. Only Frank Sinatra had better relationships with the mob than the Catholic Church and he very nearly ended up in concrete galoshes.

According to the Pope, who knows his bible, Mafia gangsters will go to hell unless they repent and stop doing evil. Now that’s a big ask of a group of families who make their living out of wrong doing and, due to their strict upbringing, have no choice but to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. It’s an honour thing; they’re a kind of religious society without the praying and doing the ‘right’ thing. In fact, in many ways they are just like the Catholic Church. Both have rigorous codes of conduct, are insular and protective of their own, have a single ‘all powerful’ leader of the flock, and have been extorting money through fear for hundreds of years.

The Pope has said to the Mafiosi that "Blood-stained money, blood-stained power, you can't bring it with you to your next life. Repent." It’s almost like something he might say to his own people in the Vatican who have historically always dealt in blood, money, and power – to say nothing of sexual activities that would rival the excesses of any Mafia run brothel.

His comments near Rome on Friday - organised by a citizens' group called Libera - were aimed at showing that the Roman Catholic Church is opposed to organised crime and rejecting historic ties with Mafia bosses claiming to be good Catholics.

Now I thought that weekly confession was there to deal with all of this. I thought that you could repent all your sins on your deathbed and go off to heaven with a clean Catholic conscience, even if you were a Mafia assassin. Surely God forgives all of our sins regardless of how late we repent? Surely hoodlums aren’t exempt and their souls will be saved, won’t they? Well apparently not according to the Pope, who has told members of the Cosa Nostra that: "There's still time to not end up in hell, which is what awaits you if you continue on this path."

Somehow I can’t see the Don Corleone’s of this world paying much attention to Benedict XVI. Rosary beads and Hail Mary’s just ain’t their style, besides he’s an Argentinean and not from the home country. Still, it’s a brave man who stands up to the Mafia, particularly when his only weapon is the threat of Hell, particularly when his own organisation is full of greedy, ambitious men with connections and the odd horse’s head hidden in the closet that they’d love to come out of.

I wish the Pope well with his crusade against corruption of all kinds, it’s long overdue. He seems to me to be genuinely trying to change things in an organisation that is corrupt to its very core – and I don’t mean the Mafia. I only hope that he isn’t made an offer he can’t refuse before his time is due. We don’t need any new white smoke at the Vatican just yet. Cement Wellingtons are really no substitute for red slippers.