Pope Leo meets families of youth lost to illegal toxic waste dumping in Italy’s ‘Land of Fires’

ACERRA, Italy — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday greeted one by one families who lost loved ones to illegal toxic dumping in an area near Naples, as many paused to share photographs and other mementos of children and young people who have died or are battling cancer — illnesses tied to a multi-billion criminal racket run by the mafia.

Leo’s visit to the so-called Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Pope Francis’s big ecological encyclical Laudato Si’ (Praised Be), and indicates Leo’s commitment to carry on his predecessor’s environmental agenda.

“I have come first of all to gather the tears of those who have lost loved ones, killed by environmental pollution caused by unscrupulous people and organizations who for too long were able to act with impunity,” Leo said in remarks to family members and local clergy inside Acerra’s cathedral.

The pontiff recalled that the area now dubbed the Land of Fires was once called “Campania felix,” Latin for blessed or fruitful countryside, “capable for enchanting for its fertility, its produce and its culture, like a hymn to life.

“And yet — here is death, of the land and of men,” the