Would the mafia ever order a hit on Pope Francis?

Pope Francis isn’t the first pontiff to warn the Mafia of eternal punishment — in 1993, Pope John Paul II traveled to Sicily with a message for the Sicilian Mafiosi: You will “one day face the justice of God.” La Cosa Nostra didn’t try to kill John Paul II — though Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca did try in 1981 — but it did apparently respond to his admonition by bombing several Roman churches a few months later, including the Basilica of St. John Lateran — the pope’s home church, in his role as Bishop of Rome.

That reaction to Pope John Paul’s relatively mild rebuke lends some credence to fears of a Mafia hit after Pope Francis’ frank condemnation. And the Mafia isn’t above killing prominent figures or men of the cloth, either — in 1993, Cosa Nostra hit men murdered Rev. Pino Puglisi outside his Palermo church, apparently for urging local residents to break their silence on mob activity. In 1994, Rev. Giuseppe Diana was gunned down after testifying about the Naples-based Camorra mob, and threatening to refuse communion for mafiosi. In 1992, the Mafia killed crusading organized crime prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.