In attempting to eliminate the use of drugs in the USA, and by extension in Canada, Donald Trump is teaching kids they have alternative choice.
The biggest problem in Canada is that the hidden and powerful 1% have engaged the minority 1% , to create havoc for the 98%. In between, fall prey our children - lost and confused, especially when the concepts of family and faith are under attack in Canada. In God we must place our trust, not unscrupulous politicians.
The children of Brancaccio had two choices.
By Forgotten Stories
Join the Mafia at twelve years old. Run drugs, watch for police, learn to kill. Get money, respect, protection. Or stay poor. Stay powerless. Stay scared. Most kids picked the Mafia. Who wouldn't?
But in 1990, a 53-year-old Catholic priest named Giuseppe Puglisi walked into this neighborhood and said something nobody had ever told these children before. "You have another choice."
Brancaccio wasn't just poor. It was a war zone. Mafia families owned every street corner, every shop, every person. They recruited kids the way other places recruited for Little League. Except here, if you said no, bad things happened to your family.
Father Pino - that's what everyone called him - looked around and saw something different. He saw children who'd been told their whole lives they were destined to become criminals. Kids who believed violence was their only path to mattering. He refused to believe it. So he did something that sounds simple but was actually revolutionary. He opened his church doors after school. He started basketball games. Music lessons. Homework help. He created a place where ten-year-olds could just be ten-year-olds.
The kids came. Slowly at first. Then in groups. They'd never had an adult tell them they were smart. They'd never heard someone say they could become doctors or teachers or anything besides thugs. Father Pino said it every day. The Mafia bosses noticed.
Every kid in Father Pino's programs was a kid they couldn't recruit. Every teenager who stayed in school was money they couldn't make. Every young person who learned to read instead of learning to fight was power they couldn't have. They sent warnings. Subtle ones first. Father Pino ignored them completely. He kept organizing soccer tournaments. He kept helping with math homework. He kept telling children they were worth more than the streets wanted them to believe.
The warnings got clearer. Less subtle. Friends begged him to request a transfer to somewhere safe. Family members pleaded with him to be careful. Father Pino smiled and kept working.
He wasn't naive. He knew exactly what he was doing and exactly what it might cost him. He'd lived in Sicily his whole life. He understood how the Mafia worked. He knew they killed people who interfered with their business.
But he also knew these kids deserved someone who wouldn't abandon them. Someone who wouldn't run when things got dangerous. Someone who would show them through actions, not just words, that the Mafia's power wasn't absolute. By 1993, the local Mafia bosses had had enough. This priest was disrupting everything. Kids who should have been dealing drugs were playing basketball. Teenagers who should have been carrying guns were carrying books. Young men who should have been joining their ranks were talking about college.
They made a decision. Father Pino had to go. September 15, 1993. Father Pino's 56th birthday.
He'd spent the day like every other day. Working with kids. Organizing programs. Helping families. As evening came, he walked home to his small apartment building in the heart of Brancaccio. Two men were waiting in the shadows. When Father Pino saw them, he didn't run. He didn't scream. He didn't beg. According to witnesses, he smiled. A gentle, knowing smile.
"Me l'aspettavo," he said quietly. "I've been expecting you."
One of the gunmen shot him in the back of the head. Father Giuseppe Puglisi died instantly on the street where he'd worked so hard to bring hope. But something unexpected happened next.
Instead of silencing opposition, Father Pino's murder sparked it. The people of Brancaccio - many who'd been too scared to speak out before - came together. They held vigils. They spoke his name. They refused to let his death be meaningless. His courage had planted seeds. Now those seeds were growing.
The investigation led to arrests. Convictions. The Mafia bosses who ordered his killing went to prison. In 2013, Pope Francis declared Father Pino "blessed" - one step below sainthood.
Today, schools and programs across Sicily bear his name. Children still learn in the places he created. The work continues.
But here's what makes Father Pino's story so powerful. Those final words - "I've been expecting you" - weren't spoken by someone who didn't understand danger. They were spoken by someone who'd been living with that danger every single day. He could have left. He could have stopped the programs. He could have chosen safety over service.
Instead, he chose to show children that some things are worth more than staying safe. That some people are worth fighting for, even when the fight might kill you. Real courage isn't about not being afraid. Real courage is being terrified and doing the right thing anyway. It's knowing you might die and deciding that some things are worth dying for. Father Pino knew those gunmen were coming. Maybe not that exact night, but someday. He'd been expecting them for months, maybe years. And he kept working anyway. He kept believing those children deserved better. He kept showing them another way was possible. He kept choosing love over fear, hope over surrender, service over safety.
That's what makes someone a saint. Not performing miracles. But living so fully for others that death becomes just another way to serve. The children of Brancaccio still have choices to make. But now they know there are more than two.
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