NAPLES, Italy — Pope Francis, visiting Italy's impoverished south on Saturday, encouraged Neapolitans to resist exploitation by Mafia dons and instead seek the dignity of honest jobs.
On a day trip to Naples, Francis spoke to residents in Scampia, a rundown neighborhood dominated by Camorra mobsters.
In places like Scampia, youth unemployment is rampant. Many wind up working for the Naples-based crime syndicate as drug couriers or extortionists, shaking down merchants for so-called "protection money."
He cited the widespread use of black market jobs in a city like Naples, where many work in clandestine garment factories or sell bootleg cigarettes or counterfeit electronic goods on the street.
But Francis also denounced the exploitation in legal jobs that require long hours for low pay. He told Neapolitans he heard about a young woman who was offered a job in the tourism sector paying $650 monthly for 11-hour days.
Later, in his homily in Naples' main square, Francis urged tens of thousands of people to hold on to hope and resist the "easy earnings or dishonest income" of drug trafficking. He called on Mafiosi and their accomplices to abandon their criminal ways.
