Felonious Friars?

Despite the tension in the courtroom, four defendants remained calm and moved their lips in what seemed to be silent prayer. The impulse was natural: the four were robed and cowled Capuchin friars, accused with three laymen of operating a spectacular extortion-murder ring in racket-ridden Sicily.

The gang began operations in 1956 in the small island town of Mazzarino, site of a 200-year-old Capuchin monastery. One of its first alleged victims was Father Agrippino, whose evening prayers were interrupted one November night by a buckshot blast into the wall beside him. A few days later, Carmelo Lo Bartolo, the monastery gardener, trotted up to the friar, informed him sadly that anonymous scoundrels wanted $320 or they would aim better next time. Father Agrippino settled with the messenger for $160.

Soon the gang turned to better-heeled citizens of their own village. The local pharmacist ignored a series of neatly typed threats until his drugstore burned down; but he paid up ($3,200) when urged by Father Agrippino, accompanied by Father Vittorio and the venerable Father Carmelo (he is now 83). "I am a victim, too, dear doctor," Friar Agrippino declared. "If we don't obey, they'll kill us."

In the years that followed, villagers became accustomed to the sight of the hooded friars padding about on their melancholy missions, but police lacked proof of their actions. One wealthy villager who refused to listen was shot to death by three masked gunmen. Gardener Lo Bartolo was arrested as an accomplice, soon was found in his cell hanging by the bed sheet--victim either of suicide or of preventive murder by the Mafia, who feared that he would squeal. Evidence against the friars finally came to light two years ago, when police discovered a typewriter in Father Vittorio's cell that matched some of the death threats.

At the trial in Messina last week the laymen, recalling the gardener's fate, said only that they knew nothing. Clearly they would be no help in answering the key question: Were the friars only tools of anonymous higher-ups, or were they the masterminds? Either way, their action had brought grief to the Capuchins of Sicily. Said Father Sebastiano, provincial head of the order, who himself had been shaken down by the ring: "Even among us, somebody sometimes makes mistakes."

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