Pope Francis on Saturday denounced and excommunicated from the Catholic Church all mobsters after his one-day visit to the Calabria region, where a 3-year-old boy was shot dead during a shootout in January.

The pope spoke with the boy's father in the underdeveloped region, the base of global drug-trafficking syndicate 'Ndrangheta, which extorts businesses and infiltrates public works contracts, USA Today reported.

Francis condemned the mob because of its "adoration of evil and contempt for the common good" during his homily at an outdoor Mass.

"Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are not in communion with God," the pope said. "They are excommunicated."

Nicola Campolongo's father and mother were already in prison in the town of Castrovillari on drug-trafficking charges before the boy was shot. The boy, one of his grandfathers and the grandfather's girlfriend were gunned down in Cassano all'Jonio. The attackers then put their bodies in a vehicle and set it on fire.

In the prison courtyard, Francis comforted Campolongo's father, who asked the pope to pray for his wife, the boy's mother. She was released after the fatal shooting but remains under house arrest, Fox News reported.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Ciro Benedettini said Pope Francis told the boy's father, "May children never again have to suffer in this way."

Benedettini also said Francis spoke with the boy's two grandmothers, who "were weeping like fountains."

Before speaking with the boy's family, the pope spoke with roughly 200 imprisoned men and women, according to Fox.

The Vatican said Francis made the trip to address two problems that have plagued southern Italy: organized crime's regional influence and young people's unemployment.

Francis has become more popular since being named pope, and the mafia has become "very nervous" of his reform agenda, anti-mob prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said last year.

"For many years, the mob has laundered money and made investments with the complicity of the church," Gratteri said, adding that the pope's reforms have made those activities difficult for the mob, which could make Francis a target, USA Today reported.