Abstract:
The Mezzogiorno, and above all, Sicily, is often assumed to be a society seeping with Mafia influence and rife with clientelism and questione meridionale. The ideas of the antimafia movement, however, would seek to work against these prejudices which they consider to be loaded with stigma, and would rather work towards the creation of a civil society.
It has, until now, hardly been recognized that Catholicism has played an important role in this movement. This ethnography about life in a poor district of Palermo analyses the religious practices which have arisen out of the material resources and ideals of Sicilian society: they aim to heal and sanctify the people and their environment, in order to help them confront their everyday life which is interfused by the Mafia.