Where Saints Show Respect reveals the penetration of mafia values in Sicilian society. Instead of focusing on sensational criminality, this study considers rituals through which local society learns deep respect – sometimes fearful, but often playful or pious – for those values and their enforcers. State and Church misconstrue these values as vestiges of a society morally damned and left behind in a pagan past. This study draws on three decades of ethnographic research to explore a strikingly different Sicily from the self-congratulatory version of government and religious leaders, where a seemingly obscure set of rural practices offers a critical perspective on modernity itself.
