Which suggests the question, can you be a devout Catholic and go around murdering people?
There was a time, not so long ago, when you couldn't be a
really devout Catholic
unless you went around murdering people. The Pope himself demanded it of you. Crusades are a good example, plus the regular executions of individual heretics, and the extirpation of entire heretic communities, over the centuries.
Not that you had to be a devout Catholic to go around murdering people. Everybody else did it too, all the time, and they all still do.
I wonder if the Pope's admonition actually
could have a positive effect on devoutly Catholic mafia members? It's incredibly unlikely, but it would be great if it did dissuade even one eighty-yer-old Cosa Nostra from dissolving his rival's bones in hydrofluoric acid, and convince him to return them to the bereaved family instead. Even better if it also has some kind of calming effect among gang members in South America. Highly unlikely, I know, but kudos to him for trying, I suppose.
To my knowledge Ratzinger never said a single word in public about the Mafia, or anything of note about the Vatican Bank, so at least Francis is making an effort to appear conscious.
"The universe is 40 billion light years across and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. That is the position of the universe with regard to human life."