Even the Church accommodated the mafia and avoided naming it for decades

Evidence

In 1982 the particularly vicious murder of a Carabinieri general and his young wife prompted Palermo’s cardinal to speak out openly against the mafia for the first time. As a result, the inmates of the city prison unanimously refused to attend Mass. Pope John Paul II visited Palermo soon after and made what was interpreted as a conciliatory public speech, omitting any reference even to the word mafia (Calvi 1986: 27). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Parallel to Gambetta’s wider model of mafia sustaining an ambiguous status with legitimate institutions; connects to the reader’s claim that the mafia substitutes for state legitimacy.
• QUESTION: What functions does the church’s ambiguity toward the mafia serve for each side? Ambiguity itself is a resource.