Pope Leo, symbolic visit to the “Triangle of Death” in Italy / “He is perhaps the only one capable of awakening a little the conscience of those who have harmed this land”

Pope Leo XIV traveled on Saturday to Acerra, near Naples, in the heart of “Tierra del Fuego”, an area ravaged by decades of illegal landfills controlled by the mafia, massive pollution poisoning residents, reports AFP.

Located between Naples and Caserta in Campania, this southern Italian territory of almost three million inhabitants owes its nickname to the many illegal open-air incineration sites for industrial waste, often imported from the north of the peninsula.

For decades, soils, water tables and air have been contaminated with heavy metals, dioxins and fine particles. The health consequences are particularly alarming, with cancer rates above the national average.

Thus, in a first speech, the pope criticized “the deadly mixture of obscure interests and indifference to the common good, which has poisoned the natural and social environment.”

The “Triangle of Death” the place where waste has been illegally burned since the 1980s

“The Pope is perhaps the only person capable of awakening a little the conscience of all those who have harmed this land,” Giuseppina De Francesco, 60, a faithful of this diocese, told AFP.

This visit is all the more symbolic as it takes place on the 11th anniversary of the encyclical Laudato Si', a historic manifesto of Pope Francis on environmental protection.

The “Land of Fire”, also known as the “Triangle of Death”, has served as a landfill and illegal incineration site since the late 1980s.

Instead of paying exorbitant sums to legally treat their toxic waste, the firms paid the local Camorra mafia a fraction of the cost to get rid of everything from broken asbestos sheets to car tires and containers of industrial glue.

Since 2013, a series of parliamentary inquiries have concluded that the authorities showed negligence and, in some cases, complicity.

“Here, my dears, is the main reason for my presence”

“In life, we understand that the more fragile a beauty is, the more attention and responsibility it requires,” the Pope later said.

“Here, my dears, is the main reason for my presence today at Acerra: to confirm and encourage this impulse of dignity and responsibility that every honest heart feels when life is born and is immediately threatened by death,” Leo XIV continued before the faithful.

“This country has paid a heavy price, it has buried many of its sons, it has witnessed the suffering of children and the innocent,” the US pope continued before a crowd estimated at around 15,000 by local authorities.

Leo XIV wanted, in the end, “to thank these “pioneers” who, thanks to their courageous commitment, were the first to denounce the evils of this country and draw attention to the hidden and denied reality of its poisoning: I am thinking especially of the members of environmental associations”.

Since his election in May 2025, Leo XIV has paid particular attention to environmental issues, following the example of his Argentine predecessor.