Pope to visit area that became a “dump,” now plagued by cancers

Heading to Acerra — a town south of Rome, near Naples — on Saturday, May 23, Pope Leo XIV will visit a deeply scarred territory. The area has fallen victim to devastating environmental degradation due to illegal dumping and the unchecked burning of toxic waste. Eleven years after the publication of the ecological encyclical Laudato si’, the Pontiff's trip will fulfill a long-held dream of Pope Francis. Here’s a look at the stakes of this visit.

Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to spend Saturday morning in Acerra, a town of 65,000 residents. Local civil and ecclesial authorities will welcome him upon his arrival by helicopter at 8:45 a.m. Also part of the welcoming committee will be a choir of about 100 children who are immigrants or come from difficult social backgrounds. He will then head to the town's cathedral to meet with 90 people, including around 30 families who have suffered the region's greatest plague: losing children to cancer.

This is "the nerve center" of the visit, Antonio Pintauro, communications director for the Diocese of Acerra, told i.Media. A committed local resident, he paints a picture of a mistreated land that has suffered from illegal industrial waste dumping for 40 years.

"In the past," he noted, "Acerra was the heart of Campania felix [an ancient Latin term referring to it being a blessed region, Ed.] between Naples and Caserta, which was some of the most fertile agricultural land in Europe. So much so that, for centuries and up until the 1950s, Acerra exported agricultural products all over the world, and our countryside produced three harvests a year."

But the Campania town withered at the hands of "misguided policies," Pintauro pointed out. During the second half of the 20th century, agriculture was abandoned in favor of polluting industries — which have since shut down. Organized crime then dumped and buried illegal toxic waste on the abandoned land.

The situation worsened when, on top of the dumping, waste was illegally burned across the contaminated countryside. "Over the last 20 years, these toxic fires produced infernal smoke that worsened air pollution even further. That's where the name Terra dei Fuochi — the Land of Fires — comes from," he explained.

The health scandal began to come to light as rare tumors multiplied among residents. The community tragedy, which also affected young people, sparked a "civic awakening among the population." However, the uprising was met with institutional denial, "due either to corruption or incompetence," Pintauro added.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the local Catholic Church stepped up alongside the people to demand recognition of the damage and to advocate for the land's cleanup. Recently, in 2021, a scientific investigation by the Italian National Institute of Health marked a major breakthrough: the report highlighted that the cancer and respiratory diseases recorded in the area, particularly among children, were higher than the national average.

In January 2025, a legal ruling further bolstered the population's fight. The European Court of Human Rights condemned the Italian government, ruling that it had failed to adequately protect the health of citizens exposed to the massive pollution. "The problem doesn't just affect Campania, but other Italian territories too. Dozens of sites have been identified as highly polluted across northern, central, and southern Italy," Pintauro specified.

Following his visit to the cathedral on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV will meet 10,000 residents of the Land of Fires in Acerra's Calipari Square. The mayors of the 90 municipalities in this territory of 3 million inhabitants will attend the gathering, which will have tight security. Around 1,300 law enforcement officers and 700 volunteers have been mobilized to secure the popemobile's route, lined with 6,000 protective barriers.

"Acerra was heavily scarred by crime, especially in the 1980s and 90s. Today, there's still a criminal mafia presence, but the city is no longer considered a hub for organized crime," the diocese's communications director explained.

The date of the Acerra visit wasn't chosen at random: it falls on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’. Published on May 24, 2015, the text resonates deeply in the Land of Fires. "This is a real problem here: people are dying, the earth is suffering," Pintauro noted.

With this trip, the 267th pope is also honoring an unfulfilled promise from his predecessor. A visit from Pope Francis was scheduled for May 24, 2020, to mark the encyclical's fifth anniversary. "Everything was ready to welcome him. But the pandemic broke out," he remembered.

During his Regina Caeli address at the Vatican that day, the Argentine pontiff mentioned the missed meeting: "Today I was supposed to go to Acerra to support the faith of that population and the commitment of those who are working to counter the drama of pollution in the so-called ‘Land of Fire.’ My visit has been postponed."

He hoped to reschedule as soon as possible, adding: "I will go there, for sure!" While lockdowns and the Pope's health prevented those words from becoming a reality, for Pintauro, "Pope Leo XIV's visit will, in a way, fulfill Francis's dream."

The communications director also highlighted that Pope Leo XIV is arriving in "a territory of resistance."

"Acerra first fought against totalitarianism, taking part in the resistance during the Second World War in the 1940s," he noted. "The city was awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Merit for its open opposition to Nazism and fascism, during which about 100 people lost their lives."

"Then, the city saw a second resistance against organized crime — the Camorra [the local mafia, Ed.] — which reached its peak in the 1980s," Pintauro added. Finally, he mentioned Acerra's third, ongoing resistance: refusing to become "an open-air dump."

In all these struggles, the bishops have stood alongside the people, he explained, emphasizing that "in this territory, the Church, the Gospel, and the defense of humanity go hand in hand." Pope Leo XIV, Pintauro hopes, is coming to "shake people's consciences."

"He'll almost certainly invite the institutions to wake up to the situation and stand with the residents, while offering a word of hope to the crowd," he said. And there's no shortage of hope, according to the Acerra local: "The first cleanup operations are beginning, and the city is trying to react. Above all, a civic conscience has developed: the people have rebelled and want to reclaim the old Campania felix, which was once the garden of the King of Naples."