The Catholic Church’s growing condemnation of the mafia signals perceived mafia weakening

Evidence

Cardinal Poletti’s worries were not yet over. In January 1990 the issue of excommunication resurfaced. Hitherto cautious and discreet cardinals in Agrigento and Catania proclaimed that “the mafia is a sign of Satan’s power” and that “the mafioso is excommunicated” (Repubblica, January 17, 1990). One of them, Luigi Cardinal Bommarito, almost as if in answer to Father Louis Gigante’s statement from across the Atlantic, undertook to remind everyone that “murder is always a sin.” Cardinal Poletti once again felt compelled to blur the issue, and while praising the southern cardinals for their courage, claimed that the question was one of general criminality rather than that of the mafia in particular, a state of internal warfare affecting not only the southern regions but Italy as a whole (La Stampa, January 17, 1990). Nevertheless, the signs of growing discomfort in the church are undeniable, and the vehemence of the southern cardinals’ intervention is unprecedented. Since the 1980s mafiosi have been so blatant in their use of violence that it has become increasingly difficult for the church to abstain from judgment. The pressure of law and order, which has also intensified in recent years, may be such that the church, sensing if not the defeat at least a weakening of the mafia, is loath to be caught in a compromisingly neutral position. Finally, the mafia may simply have become too outrageous to be allowed to go on using the images of the saints. Significantly, in November 1991 both Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo of Palermo and Pope John Paul II spoke out against the mafia on two different occasions. Neither speech was particularly forceful, but at least the church was ending a long period of silence. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mariano’s and the church’s stance on the mafia elsewhere in Gambetta — the church’s ideological legitimacy is a resource the mafia exploits, and its withdrawal is a form of delegitimation.