His life story has been retold in a book, Pino Puglisi, il prete che fece tremare la mafia con un sorriso (2013), and portrayed in a film, Come Into the Light (Italian original title Alla luce del sole) in 2005.

[4] With little support from the Palermo archdiocese, Puglisi tried to change his parishioners' mentality, which was conditioned by fear, passivity and word omertà (imposed silence).

[4] He refused their monies when offered for the traditional feast day celebrations, and would not allow the Mafia "men of honour" to march at the head of religious processions.

A small group who organized for social improvement found the doors of their houses torched, their phones receiving threats, and their families put on notice that worse things lay in store.

At the funeral Mass the archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, spoke out very strongly against the Mafia, echoing the Pope's words on a visit to Agrigento, Sicily, just months earlier.

[8] On 14 April 1998, the Mafiosi Gaspare Spatuzza, Nino Mangano, Cosimo Lo Nigro and Luigi Giacalone received life sentences for the killing of Puglisi.

[5] Puglisi's favorite rhetorical stance – "Se ognuno fa qualcosa, allora si può fare molto" (If everyone does something, then we can do a lot)[10] – is scrawled on walls in Brancaccio.

To underscore his anti-Mafia conviction, Puglisi had composed a parody of the Our Father in the Sicilian language:O godfather to me and my family, You are a man of honour and worth.

[11] On 28 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI allowed the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints to designate Puglisi a martyr in a first step to beatify the slain priest.

[12] The Pope signed a decree acknowledging that Father Puglisi had been killed "in hatred of the faith", meaning that he can be beatified – the last step before sainthood – without a miracle being attributed to his intercession with God.

[15] During his Angelus address, the following Sunday, 26 May, Pope Francis stated that the newly beatified Puglisi was first and foremost "an exemplary priest and a martyr", as well as condemning mafia groups.