ACERRA: Pope Leo on Saturday called out companies who seek “dizzying” profits at the cost of environmental pollution, on a visit to an area in Italy known as a hotbed for illegal dumping of toxic waste.

On a visit to Acerra, about 220 km (137 miles) south of Rome, the first US pope urged the world to “reject temptations of power and enrichment linked to practices that pollute the land, water, air, and social coexistence.”

Pope Leo said he wanted to come to the area near Naples known as the “Land of Fires”, where the European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that authorities had failed to protect residents from waste dumping since at least 1988, to “gather the tears” of families who had lost loves ones to related illnesses.

Arriving by popemobile in an outside square on a sunny spring day, Leo was greeted by people waving small yellow and white Vatican flags and wearing yellow hats, some holding up posterboards with pictures of family members who had died.

Leo, who in recent months has been speaking more forcefully and will issue his first major document on Monday, said “unscrupulous people and organizations have been allowed to act with impunity for too long”. During his four-hour visit to Acerra, he also referred to “the dizzying profits of a few, blind to the needs of people, their work and their future.” He also met with victims.

For years, collection, treatment and disposal of garbage in southern Italy was largely in the hands of a small group of private owners, with contracts sometimes tied to the Camorra, a mafia group based around Naples.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2026