The Battle for Sicily's Soul

The rise of the Mafia and the fight to free Sicily from it's evil tyranny.

The Mafia survived in the shadows while holding Sicily in an iron-clad fist for over a century, its colonisation of Sicilian folkore, such as the legend of the Beati Paoli, and misappropration of traditional Sicilian values, such as the importance of honour and love for the family, made Cosa Nostra appear to be a timeless and inevitbale reality of Sicilian life.

A very important part of this strategy was the takeover of Catholic symbols, rituals an performative events that are beloved by Sicilians, branding the Mafia and its members as honoruable and devout, while in fact they were anything but.

This book looks at how Cosa Nostra manipulated Sicilian society and the Catholic Church for decades, disappearing into the background while holding in plain sight. The roots of the Mafia in the island's religious superstition, bigotry and legends were so strong that it took over one hundred years and a massacre for the vows of secrecy to be broken, revealing the true face of the Sicilian Mafia. See more