Church-state conflict pushed the Catholic church into alliance with local Sicilian power networks

Evidence

The history of the relationship between the mafia and the Catholic church is mysterious and neglected, and deserves a more sustained study than this brief digression. A likely beginning of the association between the church and informal networks of power in Sicily dates back at least to Italian Unification in 1861. Immediately after Unification, hostility between church and state became acute, mainly as a result of the expropriation of the church’s property and estates and the general anticlericalism of the early Italian liberals (Marino 1986: 231ff.). In 1877 Pope Pius IX rejected the legitimacy of the newly formed Italian state and ruled that no Catholic could run, or indeed vote, in national elections. Catholics could, however, take part in local elections, which provided the church a further incentive to establish a liaison with local political groups as opposed to national ones. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 127

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Gambetta’s overall thesis on private protection markets — the church-state rift created a governance vacuum local mafiosi filled, paralleling how failed state authority breeds third-party enforcers.