Church accused of complicity in migrant deaths in northern Italy

ROME – Despite Catholicism’s broad reputation for being pro-migrant, especially in the Pope Francis era, in one northern Italian town the church has been accused, presumably by far-left activists, of complicity in the recent deaths of two young African migrants, one from Senegal and the other from Guinea.

On the morning of Dec. 13, the words Chiesa Complice (“the church is complicit”) were discovered scrawled in red spray paint next to the entrance to the headquarters of the Diocese of Alba.