The Littlest Lonesome Dove

It was only a matter of time before animal rights groups would swoop down on the Vatican after saturation mainstream media coverage of two doves attacked by a seagull and crow when they were released Sunday from a vatican window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

The story of the Vatican-released doves under attack, has long, long legs. The National Animal Protection Agency published an open letter yesterday reminding Pope Francis that domesticated doves are easy prey for predators like gulls, and the mighty AP has put in a query asking the Vatican whether it might abandon the practice. “The two doves tossed into the air by two children flanking the pope at an open window of the Apostolic Palace Sunday didn’t go far, landing at first on ledges of the building. In separate dives, first a seagull and then a large black crow swept down and grabbed a dove by the tail. Feathers fluttered over the square but the doves shook off their attackers. It wasn’t clear what then happened to the birds,” Father John Zuhlsdorf wrote on his blog Fr. Z. We may not know the end of the story of the peace symbol doves attacked by the seagull and crow.

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But some sadly do know the fate of 3-year-old toddler Nicola Campolongo, affectionately known as “Coco”, whose body was found in a torched car in Cosenza, southern Italy, one week before. On the same day as Sunday’s dove attack, Pope Francis’ thoughts went to tiny Coco: “My thoughts go to Coco Campolongo...The anger taken out on this tiny boy seems unprecedented in the history of criminality,” the Pope said today, in his cry against mafia crime. “Let us pray with Coco--he said--who without any doubt is in heaven with Jesus, for these people who have committed this crime that they repent and be converted,” the pope said during the Angelus. (Vatican Insider, January 28, 2014) The story of Sunday’s doves--an exact replica of the fate of the doves one day short a year to the day from last year’s attack when Pope Benedict XVI released a pair of doves, is still going viral on the Internet. In the thousands of stories about the doves in the mainstream media not a single news outlet mentioned 3-year-old Coco, whose death, other than being recalled in the pope’s prayers, was forgotten one short week after it happened. “A horrific triple murder in southern Italy in an apparent score-settling between rival mafia drug gangs has shocked the country, with a chorus of outrage over the youngest victim, a three-year-old boy. (news24, January 20, 2014).

“The boy, a man believed to be his grandfather and a woman believed to be his 52-year-old grandfather’s Moroccan girlfriend, were found in a burnt-out car in an isolated spot in the Calabria region on Sunday. “How can you kill a small human being like this? This goes beyond any limit,” prosecutor Franco Giacomantonio was quoted by Italian media on Monday as saying. “This is something unprecedented, horrific. In many years of work I think this is the most vicious murder I have ever been faced with,” the prosecutor said. “Nunzio Galantino, the bishop of the mountain town of Cassano allo lonio where the three were from, held a special prayer on Sunday by the car as police took out the skeletal remains, one of which was in the boot. “I am shocked by the level of violence shown by whoever carried out these killings. How can you not hear the cries of a little boy?” Galantino said.

The cries of a little boy and the prayers said for him one week later were drowned out by the mainstream media sending the story of a seagull and a crow attacking Vatican-released doves viral over the World Wide Net. This is one story where Coco Campolongo is surely the littlest lonesome dove. Help make Coco’s death matter by sending your prayers to the Lord viral.