This Europe: Mafia boss sees the light on daytime TV

The Mafia boss Benedetto Marciante, on the run since September after receiving a 30-year sentence for his part in the gruesome murder of another gangster, was in his Rome hideout this week when the Pope came on the television.

For anyone with a daytime television habit, the Pope was hard to avoid that day: three channels cleared the decks to carry his address to parliament live. The historic rapprochement between Church and State which the visit to parliament symbolised has been splashed across Italy's newspapers for most of the week.

The left-leaning Roman daily La Repubblica described the Pontiff after the speech as "the great protector of our Republic". Parliamentarians interrupted his speech 29 times to applaud, and stood and clapped at the end for more than two minutes.

A general mood of awe, inspired equally by the historic resonance of the event and the heroism of the 82-year-old Pope, hauling himself unaided up the steps to the dais and speaking for almost an hour without even a drink of water, has seeped from parliament like marsh gas and spread to most of the country, rendering millions of Italians insensible.

The fumes certainly got to the 50-year-old convicted Mafioso. When the Pope turned to a favourite subject, the importance of the family, Marciante was "electrified" according to his lawyers. Some hours later he knocked on the gates of Rebibbia Jail in the capital and told the incredulous guards: "I've realised that I have made many mistakes in my life – so here I am."

When he explained who he was, the guards informed the prison governor. The gangster's lawyers were summoned, and later explained to the press what had happened. "Our client is a most sensitive and religious person," they averred. "He was particularly struck by the Pontiff's affirmation of the value of the family."

In a quiet way, John Paul II seems to be conducting his own campaign to de-fang the Mafia. Back in June, the Cosa Nostra's number two, Nino Guiffre, became the first of a new wave of penitenti when he turned himself in to the police and sang like a canary. "My penitence is ethical and religious, and came to maturity the day Padre Pio was beatified," he claimed, referring to the elevation by the Pope of a charismatic south Italian priest.