The square in Palermo, previously known as Piazzale Anita Garibaldi, will bear the priest’s name from now on.
Pope Francis on Saturday visited Sicily to honour Fr Puglisi, who was murdered by the mafia while trying to save youth in the poor neighbourhoods of Palermo from falling into a life of violence and crime.
“You can’t believe in God and belong to the mafia,” Pope Francis said before around 100,000 people at an open-air mass near the port of Palermo.
“Those who belong to the mafia don’t lead a Christian existence because their lives are blasphemous.
“Change! Stop thinking about yourselves and your money, convert!”
Fr Puglisi served as a parish priest in the poor Palermo district of Brancaccio.
On September 15, 1993 - the day of his 56th birthday - he was shot dead at point-blank range by mobsters.
“I was waiting for you,” the martyred priest reportedly said with a smile before dying on the doorstep of his home.
In 2013, Fr Puglisi was beatified, in the first step to sainthood within the Roman Catholic church.
