No Godfathers Need Apply
At least not in Sicily!
More of what happened this year.
This year the archbishop of Catania in Sicily banned godfathers. He did it in May to take effect in October, and to be good for three years of Baptisms and Confirmations. It seems this was a necessary, drastic step for drastic times in Sicily. Now other dioceses in Sicily have taken the same action. The priests there are relieved because it has shielded them from being seen as the bad guy. Now it’s the archbishop.
The problem came in because the role of the godfather had become a combination of prestige giver, respect enforcer, and employment agency. For parents, the higher up the Mafia ladder the godfather was, the more prestigious for them. On the flip side, one godfather proudly proclaimed that he had forty godchildren and this gave him a great sense of being highly respected. For the children, if you have a mafia godfather, chances were you would never be jobless. The last qualifications any godfather needed in the invitation to stand as one, were the qualifications found in the Code of Canon Law.
All right, so the Code isn’t all that specific. It does not require either Godparents for Baptism or Sponsors for Confirmation. They are suggestions. The suggested requirements are not a stretch. You must be a practicing Catholic. Duh. How can you help guide your godchild on their faith journey if you don’t know the way? Looking at the responsibility of the position, that’s a pretty low bar. And that’s it. What is left unspecified are the specifics of who is in good standing. There are some basics there though. If you are not married in the Church, you are not in good standing. If you are not registered in your parish, you are not in good standing. Another duh.
The Vatican created a working group earlier this year to study how best to separate criminal organizations, like the mafia, from Catholic traditions. This eight member panel is an initiative of the Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. They have averred that “they are dedicated to studying the excommunication of the mafia”. This action by Archbishop Salvatore Gristina in Catania is a strong first step.
It would be impossible to miss the organized crime families of Sicily. In southern Italy, Sicily to be precise, its ’Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate is one of the most powerful mafia groups in Italy. It is the largest organized crime family in Italy. Its home base is in some of Sicily’s poorest regions. As I write this I am listening to RTE Irish News report that 70 members of this organization were just convicted of various crimes and corruptions. This is a unique situation. More than four hundred people were indicted. As a plea bargain, they were all offered the opportunity to accept a speedy trial. In return their sentences would be reduced by one-third if convicted. Guaranteed. This speedy trial was the largest mafia trial in three decades. There are 355 more indicted people to be tried, who opted out of the speedy trial offer. Estimates are that could take another two years. During the trial it was estimated that there are 6000 members of this crime family, plus supporters. This is no small problem being tackled.
With this backdrop and the commitment of the Vatican Committee, it is evident that someone there had to do something and Sicily is a great place to start. But the ones with the easiest part in involving the displeasure of organized crime in this are the ones farthest from the effects. I doubt the members of the Vatican Committee in far off Rome, are the most exposed for any vendetta. Maybe Archbishop Gristina is safe too. But the priests who are on the frontline in Catania should be checking their cars before they turn them over. (Maybe they were doing it already.) Many of the priests said privately that they had been threatened with physical violence to approve some godfathers. So this is at least the most logical way to stop this whole abuse of Baptism and Confirmation. The Archbishop’s decree went into effect in October. It would be important and interesting to see if threats and intimidation to ignore the Archbishop are made. I wouldn’t want to be in that spot.