Pope Leo has greeted grieving families who lost loved ones to illegal toxic dumping in an area near Naples, tied to a multi-billion-dollar mafia-run criminal racket.
Many paused to share photographs and other mementos of children and young people who have died or are battling cancer because of the pollution.
Leo's visit to the so-called Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, came on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of the late Pope Francis' big ecological encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be), and indicates Leo's commitment to carry on his predecessor's environmental agenda.
