Pope Francis on Saturday issued the strongest attack on organized crime groups by a pontiff in two decades, accusing them of practicing "the adoration of evil" and saying mafiosi are excommunicated.
It was the first time a pope had used the word excommunication — a total cutoff from the church — in direct reference to members of organized crime.
"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," he said in impromptu comments at a Mass before hundreds of thousands of people in one of Italy's most crime-infested areas.