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.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of church-state conflict in post-unification Italy and the church's turn to local networks elsewhere in Europe.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 127