Burns Strider, a Washington political strategist, paraphrasing The Godfather said it well: they turned down an offer they shouldn’t have refused.

Today Pope Francis  announced during a pastoral trip to Calabria in southern Italy that the Mafia had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He said they are guilty of the “adoration of evil and contempt of the common good.”

More details are forming, but here’s the initial story from Rocco Palmo.