In this thought-provoking episode, Simone and Malcolm delve into a complex historical and cultural analysis of why major Catholic immigrant groups in the United States have been associated with organized crime. They explore various factors, including the influence of Catholic Church teachings, the role of family structures, and cultural adaptations that have shaped these criminal organizations. The discussion also touches on historical and contemporary examples, the nature of moral accountability, and comparisons with other religious and ethnic groups. Join us as we attempt to untangle these intriguing connections and understand the broader social implications.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you today. Today we are going to be asking the question of what makes Catholics such a criminal population? Why is the Catholic soul drawn to criminality? And if you. Are confused by what I mean by this.

What I am saying is if you look at major immigrant groups throughout American History that started large scale criminal networks you are looking at the Irish mob. I. A Catholic group, the Italian mafia, a Catholic group, and modern groups like MS 13 a Latin American, Catholic Group,

Simone Collins: ms. Oh my, I didn't even think about that.

Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins: In fact the only other immigrant population that I can think of that was able to set up a, a large and persistent criminal network that was not Catholic was. Perhaps the Russian mob, but the Russian mob was never as big as the mob or the mafia or even MS 13. So as, as an immigrant

Simone Collins: class, right?

Malcolm Collins: As an immigrant class, we're not including, right, because I'm

Simone Collins: thinking about like the, the Akua are falling apart. The Yakuza

Malcolm Collins: never established a large foothold in the United States. No, they

Simone Collins: did

Malcolm Collins: not.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Even when I went to AI to ask it about this, because I was like, maybe AI will know something about this.

Like it must have some great counter examples to these Catholic groups and keep up. Catholics are a minority of the American population. Even still, they're only like 22%. Right? And historically they were not big. We've pointed this out before, but even during the revolution in the United States, they were around 1.5% of the population.

And even in the state that is sort of as the Catholic State, Maryland, they were only around 13% of the population. So what's is it

Simone Collins: that the, that the Catholic Church itself teaches them bureaucratic organization, like how to build a hierarch functional? We'll, we'll get

Malcolm Collins: in, we will get into that. So the only a large or even remotely large non-Catholic immigrant.

Organized crime organization able to find were the Chinese tongs. So they emerged in the late 19th century in Chinatowns, particularly in New York and San Francisco as mutual aid societies for Chinese immigrants, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But obviously like you haven't heard of the tongs, so they're, they're not quite as big.

Right? Yeah, I've

Simone Collins: heard of the

Malcolm Collins: triad.

Simone Collins: Remember,

Malcolm Collins: but the triad never really set up here. Then you have my favorite one was I didn't know that there was a Jewish mob called Murder Inc. There was specifically, well, a little on the

Simone Collins: nose.

Malcolm Collins: I, it's a little on the nose, right. So, they specialize in carrying out contract killings and carried out between 400.

Well, what do you know, thousand orders in the 1930s. I guess that makes sense. You

Simone Collins: know, when people are like, you know, A plus plumbing co. I mean, yeah, be straightforward about what you're selling.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was like, I was like, this is, this is a, a, a great counter example. And then I read more about Murder Inc.

And, and No Murder Inc worked for the Italian Mafia. They were, they were set up it seems, even by the mafia itself. Before, why would the outsource to

Simone Collins: Jews for contract killing just 'cause they didn't, they didn't want it in the family Like that made it too awkward.

Malcolm Collins: I think maybe Jews were just better at it.

I can see Jews being uniquely good at contract killing. Nothing about, I mean, just look at, look at how good a job they did was the, was the pager exploder thing in? Oh

Simone Collins: gosh. Right? Yeah. They get the job done. That's true. Need be

Malcolm Collins: secretive about something like this. I can see, you know, a, a, a cultural specialization.

Again, this is not saying, I know.

Simone Collins: I feel like, so these days if someone were like, Simone, and you just hire someone to kill someone. I mean, I've heard that like people who take hits in Mexico are taking them for like 50 bucks. I feel like that's the opportunity. It's just yolo down arbitrage. You wanna import country?

Well, I mean more frugal people. Malcolm. I mean, you don't wanna frugal.

Malcolm Collins: I love, I don't think I can. I can, I can't afford a Jew to kill someone. Oh wait, it's your, wait. It's your whole point here that you're afraid that a Jew is gonna overcharge you. Is is, that sounds costly.

Simone Collins: Inc. They're like incorporated.

They have to, you know, they're paying taxes, they're gonna, you know, charge me extra for that. You know, their accounting system, you know, their, their annual filings over. Yeah. I could just find, you know, a very desperate Mexican who already does $50 contract killings and like.

Malcolm Collins: Go

Simone Collins: for it.

Malcolm Collins: I absolutely love you.

So you are so, by the way, this is not like we don't have anything against Jewish people. Like this is just, or Mexicans. I just, I

Simone Collins: I, I watched this really depressing YouTube video on contract killings in Mexico and was like shocked at the price of human life.

Malcolm Collins: They gotta get their

Simone Collins: act together. I don't know, man.

You're saying

Malcolm Collins: we should move to Mexico or we will be able behind. I'm not saying we should

Simone Collins: move to Mexico. I'm just saying if someone put a gun to my head and said I needed to hire a contract killer and get some something done quickly. I'd probably go to a Mexican.

Malcolm Collins: So the, the, the, the question comes from all this, and I really tried to play with AI to see if AI could think of anything.

Okay. Why is it, and, and I I have a number of hypothesis around why this may be. Why is it that predominantly not just the predominant criminal organizations in the United States were Catholics, but every large scale Catholic, immigrant wave into the United States created a large scale criminal organization that those three waves were the only large scale Catholic immigrant waves into the United States.

Yeah, the Irish and the Italians. Then the Hispanics those are the only ones you know. So every time they came, they also set this up. This isn't to say that there wasn't a German Catholic wave, and I think there was a. French Catholic wave, but they, and there was a a Canadian Catholic immigrant wave, but all of these were fairly small, so they don't really matter in terms of studying this phenomenon.

Mm-hmm. So what are your thoughts before I go into this, if you're gonna make any guesses?

Simone Collins: I'm just guessing that exposure to a large functional bureaucracy and organization. That included management of people and, and all of that may have been the equivalent to giving someone an MBA in entrepreneurship, or at least like organization creation in a way that mm-hmm.

Other religious. Experiences simply didn't, and people didn't go to college really on, on mass at all until very recently. So you were able to do what you were exposed to, and the vast majority of people were not exposed to scenarios in which non immediately related people did business together, except for in the Catholic church.

'cause even Protestant churches, it was like, okay, well this is your. Your preacher and their, you know, well

Malcolm Collins: keep in mind that most of the Catholic crime networks were family based.

Simone Collins: They were, they were, but they still organized in a much more hierarchical and functional fashion. So I,

Malcolm Collins: I think that that is a huge part of it.

So, first the family emphasis or the Catholic Church as we've pointed out? No, no. The, the Catholic Social Structures. Okay. So if you look at. Like the backwards people who were descended from which we talk about in various episodes, they were significantly more violent than any of the Catholic immigrant ways.

They were much quicker to jump to murdering their neighbors. They were much quicker to as we've pointed out, a common thing was in their culture was you have sharpened nails was easier to pull out people's eyeballs. Like they were very, oh, those were

Simone Collins: the people who enjoyed fighting. But yeah, I mean, they were generally seen almost as akin to savages like.

They were a minute, like a wild animal problem. Yeah. Whereas complaints about Catholics were like, oh, they're bringing all this crime and they're taking jobs and there are too many kids. But like, it wasn't like, these people are rabid raccoons, please get them away from me. It was a very different kind complaint.

Do not, it's like, it's like having a bear walk by your house. It's like Exactly. Yeah. Very, very different. You know, disdain for both bias against both, but different flavors.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so what we see here, I think, is that this other group which was also not too dissimilar from the Western Americans or Western style Americans mm-hmm.

That, that settled like the Midwest and the, sorry, the far west of the United States. These groups were much were existed in much tighter clans than the Catholic groups did. Their, their family clan based structure didn't go that far outside of immediate family. Mm-hmm. So there was no, motivation to set up these larger scale criminal networks or no ability to set up these larger scale criminal networks mm-hmm. That Catholics had because of their familiarity with large scale hierarchies. Mm-hmm. And interfamilial hierarchies. So that's one thing. It was just their organizational ability, but it was their, their.

The other issue you had is that when you had violent people with, with violent or rambunctious tendencies it was in the Americas. What you often had them do is go to the, the far west or go to the frontier territory. Hmm.

Simone Collins: They didn't, they didn't prefer to settle in, already settled urban areas.

They

Malcolm Collins: didn't prefer to settle in large cities. Mm-hmm. But Catholics actually overwhelmingly preferred settling in large cities very. Unlike many immigrant groups throughout American history. That's a good point. Yeah. If you look at every one of the Catholic immigrant waves, they settled in major urban environments.

Yeah. Big city. The Irish city. Yeah. The Italians. Mm-hmm. And the Hispanic, New York

Simone Collins: and Boston. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And this. Created an environment where other sort of violent groups would leave cities and go to the frontiers, the Catholics did not. Now, one of the questions could be is why did Catholics become urban specialists within the American context?

And were they just settling around established parishes? Is that it? I think that Catholic culture more broadly is more amenable to urban life than Protestant culture. Specifically if you look at the core difference between Catholic and Protestant culture, it is how do you determine what is true?

Okay? And Catholics would say, well, what is true is a person should spend their entire life studying that thing and then be certified by a central authority so we know who has actually spent their life studying that thing. Yeah. And then the Protestants will say, well. What if the central authority becomes corrupted?

And this is, as we pointed out, the core conflict we had in the United States over COVID, right? Mm-hmm. The progressives were saying, who do you determine that's true?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Trust the scientists. Trust the academics, trust the government. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the more rural Americans, mostly coming from Protestant groups, said, no, that central bureaucracy could become corrupted.

Mm-hmm. It's better to make these decisions on your own. Mm-hmm. Well, this leads to a much more individualistic framing and not wanting the law. Or the government in your business with the communities that had the more Protestant framings and so they were much more quick to abandon cities for the frontier.

And it is also why, so Catholics concentrated cities, it also made Catholics have more trust for bureaucratic institutions and organizations. You, you see this? Catholics, when they left a violent crime, one of the classic Catholic jobs in the United States was being a cop. You know, the, the stereotype of the Irish cop comes from this.

Harrison, why haven't you called? You know how I worry. I'm giving it up, Maggie. I'm quitting the force. It seems like every time we frame a rich black guy, he's back out on the streets in no time. Not another word of that kind of talk, Harrison Yates. I know you. Framing rich black men for crimes they didn't commit is in your blood.

Wiping that rich, smug smile off their faces is the only thing that puts a smile on yours. You're a good cop, Harrison Yates. You don't have to question that, and you're a good wife, Maggie. Where are you going? I think I've got a little more work to do.

Malcolm Collins: and, and not just that but you also have, even today, Catholics disproportionately in the legal profession and hugely disproportionately on the Supreme Court. As we pointed out, one of the recent Supreme Courts, it was like eight out of.

Nine of them were Catholics. Or, or something like that. Just some insane number when you consider what a small population. Yeah. Like the rest are

Simone Collins: Jewish, which also makes sense. The rest

Malcolm Collins: are Jewish. Yeah. So, so huge degree of, of cultural specialization around bureaucracies. Mm-hmm. Is, is why they did this.

But so, so bureaucratic specialization, urban specialization family networks not being drawn to the countryside. And now what else are you gonna do? The next

Simone Collins: let's form a crime syndicate

Malcolm Collins: is while Catholics. Distrusted or sorry, I had a unique trust of bureaucracies. Mm-hmm. They also had a unique distrust, especially early immigrant waves of government bureaucracies.

And the question is, is why? And it's many majority Catholic countries that produce major US Catholic crime groups had histories of weak or corrupt governance, fostering distrust of legal institutions. Okay. In Southern Italy, particularly Sicily. C Centuries of foreign rules, Spanish bourbon and absent state protection led to the rise of the Sicilian Mafia as a parallel power structure.

This cultural skepticism of authority carried over to the United States for telling and immigrants viewed police and government as extensions of an oppressive system making organized crime, a viable alternative for resolving disputes and gaining power. Honor based

Simone Collins: crime, honor based justice.

Malcolm Collins: But it's not just that.

So I love how this is from an ai, it frames them as being oppressed, but I don't need Catholics to be oppressed to know that Catholics create terrible governments. If you look around the world today, that's why I'm so confused by people like Nick Fuentes who want to turn the US into a, a Catholic like he wants to create, he's a Catholic integralist, which means he thinks the entire world should be ruled under a Catholic this sort of caliphate.

Caliphate. Yeah. But I'm like. Even if you are a Catholic, like if you're a sane person, you must be able to see how much worse Catholic majority countries are to live in than than countries that are ruled by Protestants. If you look at Europe, if you look at Latin America, if you look at like wherever you go, when Catholics are in charge, the country tipping.

Typically is very, very poor very, very corrupt, very, very bureaucratic. The politicians are almost always super distrust and grif. This is just a trend throughout Catholic countries. And so now the question could be like, okay, so I can understand why they distrust bureaucracy when they come into the United States or, or government bureaucracy.

But why do Catholic countries have a tendency to be very, very corrupt and poor? That's an interesting question. Do you have thoughts on that before I go into my theories?

Simone Collins: Theories? Hmm. I mean, I maybe like having large families produces less focus on outward economic production that would support like tax revenue in a, in a city and, and more just there's focus on family, which means that. The area itself doesn't appear to be so wealthy. What, what do you think?

Malcolm Collins: So that's that, that it, part of it is close to something you called there.

It's called amoral. Familial. Oh. And specifically what it means is preference for members of a family or for nepotism. Mm-hmm. Over what is in the best interest of the community. Right. Okay. And Catholic culture produces this much more than other cultures in Latin America, for example.

I would be considered a less moral person for not hiring my incompetent brother into like a government position if I was a leading figure within the government. Mm-hmm. Within my family's own moral framing, which is, yeah. Like, you

Simone Collins: be like you, you, you do how you not Yeah. You,

Malcolm Collins: you're supposed to be there for your, your sibling.

Right,

Simone Collins: right. Instead, yeah. Whereas like in, in our upbringing, that would be seen as, I mean, e even your family is like. You know what? You don't have a job right now. Well, don't come home rabidly, anti-emetic. Yeah. Yeah. They're

Malcolm Collins: like the complete opposite of that. That's so interesting. And, and so the question can be like, well, okay then why is Catholicism like this?

Right? Yeah. Like this is a very weird thing considering it's not like a key part of the faith. And, and Catholic cultures are hugely divergent. You know, whether you're talking about Irish or Italian or Latinamerican, they're very, very different. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Culturally.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But why, why do all of those three cultures feature a degree of amoral, familial?

Simone Collins: I mean, but don't you think just in general? I mean maybe this isn't true. 'cause, I mean, Puritans also had large families and you didn't see this. Necessarily in Puritan culture. No, you, but they also believed in the inherent wretchedness of humans. So, okay, here's what I'm gonna say. It's, it's one the large family, and I think any large family is going to, to a certain extent, be a little bit incestuous.

Look at Elon Musk. He works so much with his family and his brother, right? Like the, they work together a lot. The Kardashians work together. Like, so I think in general, large family, he's

Malcolm Collins: more like a traditional clan based culture. With I,

Simone Collins: they work together. But what's different about Catholicism is like, for example.

Calvinism is like, well, people are wretched like you. You sort of don't give people the benefit of the doubt, whereas Catholicism is all about penance and forgiveness. And so even if someone is a fail son, like it's still kind of your obligation to keep him in the fold and to give him opportunities because we must give him the opportunity to show penance and to, to right the wrongs.

What do you think?

Malcolm Collins: I disagree with that. I do not believe that that's what, what causes it. I, I think theory. What leads to it is actually a cultural evolutionary pressure created, by the way the Catholic Church operates. Hmm. I think that if you look historically, if you go to like older Catholic regions, they were basically ruled by the church.

And the church had a very good system. To prevent a moral familial which was not allowing people in leadership positions to have families or children. Okay. You had the church celibacy, right? This is a core part of Catholicism. Yeah. I would argue that this celibacy of church members, mint that Catholicism didn't need to evolve the same cultural disdain for nepotism that other cultures needed to evolve.

So as Catholic countries secularized, they didn't have the pree evolved disgust. Okay? Because

Simone Collins: they protect it already has an inbuilt protection for nepotism. Meaning that an intrinsic distaste for nepotism wasn't evolutionary, evolutionarily selected for. Exactly in the same way that it was in Protestant cultures where their societal framework didn't have inbuilt protections against nepotism.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I smart. I think that the higher degrees of nepotism came down from not having protection against nepotism. By the way, if you wanna read more on a lot of these series, you're talking about them in the pragmatist Guide Crafting Religion, where we go deeper on this particular topic. Mm-hmm. But I, I just find this topic to be particularly fascinating.

So I think that that is part of what, what, what led to this, I also think that there is less, and this is somewhat to your perspective here, there is less moral accountability in systems that are overly deontological, like Catholic systems can be.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so there is, right, because

Simone Collins: consequential systems are like, you fail, you're out.

Whereas Deontological, it's like, well, you know, you meant well, you tried all the right

Malcolm Collins: things. You did something that led to the suffering of others, like installing an incompetent family member. You are responsible for the downstream consequences of this. Mm-hmm. Whereas the majority of Catholic cultures would say what matters is if your actions had righteous intent, not the consequences of your actions.

Mm-hmm. And it is very easy to frame helping your idiot family member as a righteous intent instead of the downstream. Consequences of that. And it is also true that this can be used to justify criminality within immigrant populations that feel discriminated against. They're like, well, I'm just trying to help my community.

Which you often saw groups like the Mafia and the Mob, and. Well, some Latin American gangs doing. Mm-hmm. They, they, they do, they are not as dedicated to it as the mafia and the mob were which historically really tried to give back to their community and build you know, charities and, and, and stuff like this.

Mm-hmm. So I think that that's part of it as well is that it's easier to create moral explanations for immoral acts within this framework and still maintain a high degree of status. That was an interesting thing about the, the Protestant cultures that were more rough and tumble as well. Which is if you resulted to criminality was in these cultures, yeah, you would often lose your status.

It was the low status individuals who were into crime, even if you go like the old West or something like that. Whereas, you know, as we see in movie, any movie about like the mafia or the mob or something like that these individuals were highly respected in their communities. Incredibly respected.

In the way that, that like old West Bandits just worked. Hmm. Like old West Bandits may have been romanticized, but they were not. Yeah. Only

Simone Collins: much later too. Yeah. Not at the time.

Malcolm Collins: Were they not romanticized at the time?

Simone Collins: Maybe Bonnie and Clyde, like some famous ones were, but I don't, yeah. I think more of it's a post hoc thing, but maybe I'm wrong.

I could be wrong. I'm often wrong. I'm typically wrong.

Are you asking grog?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it says old West Bandits were indeed romanticized in their own time. No way. Extent in nature were, were varied. You had media and dime store novels in the, uh mm-hmm. 1860s and seventies. Oh, you had sentiment in some communities, bandits were seen at symbols of resistance against powerful institutions.

And cultural context opposed to war area was turbulent with economic inequality and distrust of centralized power. You.

And they're, they're here saying contemporary sources like the National Police Gazette and Dime novels. The James Boys in Mississippi 1881 show a blend of condemnation and fascination. So yeah, they, they appear to have been romanticized even was in the time, were they the

Simone Collins: school shooters of the past.

Malcolm Collins: This romanticization. I, I, the, I would argue they are much more you do not have about school shooters, comic books being made. Oh, that's fair.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. You know what,

Malcolm Collins: what these are, we have comic

Simone Collins: books made about any criminals now, like fan fiction? Not really. Actually

Malcolm Collins: this wasn't an underground romanticization.

But the point I'm making is there's a big difference between romanticization and acceptance within. As sort of a, an elite class within society, whereas the, the mob and mafia bosses were seen as more cultural equivalent to the head of a bank or something like that. Not an anti-cultural institution.

Which is really fascinating to me. Interesting thoughts from you, Simone?

Simone Collins: No, keep going. This is enlightening to me.

Malcolm Collins: Well, another thing that we find is familial and communal structures. So I'm, I'm just gonna go a bit diff d deeper into this. Cultures in Catholic majority countries emphasize strong, familial and community ties, which can be exploited for criminal organization.

The Italian American mafia, for example. Readied on blood ties and loyalty based hierarchies modeled on Sicilian traditions. Irish gangs often operated as extended, quote unquote clans with deep community roots. Mm-hmm. MS 13 was less hierarchical draws a sense of brotherhood and shared Salvadorian identity, particularly among war displaced youth.

These cultural traits, loyalty, hierarchy, and collective identity facilitate the organization of cohesion for large scaled criminal enterprises. In contrast. You o other Catholic groups that didn't form organizations like Polish immigrants often integrated into the broader labor movements eg.

Unions rather than forming criminal networks. Now, I think when you read that, then my question is, it's then why don't Mormons create criminal organizations? If that's, so that's,

Simone Collins: I was thinking at the beginning of the episode, like if we're talking about, you know, very good organized groups that get stuff done, it's all about the Mormons.

They do so much more. I.

Malcolm Collins: So you could argue that the early Mormon church, as many communities did, was a criminal organization. This is why people kept chasing them out of their communities. You know, no, they did. I mean, they, I mean, yeah, sure

Simone Collins: they did for, yeah, but I mean, they did. I thought they did it because they thought they were weird, not because they were committing crimes or requiring

Malcolm Collins: Why was Joseph Smith in jail?

Because they had busted up a printing press. Like that was saying bad things about them.

Simone Collins: Okay. But that's more like. You're slandering us, we're gonna vandalize your printing press company, not like nice printing press company. Shame of something happened to it and then like demanding protection money. You know what I

Malcolm Collins: mean?

I, I, it was, it was less shrewd, but it was certainly a criminal act to determined to control and terrorize a local population. You know, so. Was, was in Mormons. They kept being kicked out of communities because what they basically, and, and keep in mind from the perspective of these communities, Joseph Smith was just a guy running a scam, right?

Like his whole thing would've been seen as close to, you know, a snake oil salesman or, you know, reading out of a hat was like a gold tablets and stuff like that. That, that sounds like a con artist, especially if he's occasionally pulling money from local community members busting up presses that say bad things about him.

And, and then. If you look at the Mormon territories they had incidents of even just like murdering people who went through their territories. Yeah. 'cause they weren't sure if they were, they, they had you know, armed conflicts was the United States government. Yeah. We're

Simone Collins: talking massacres. E even of.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, no. They did a lot of really bad stuff. Yeah. And what, the reason I mention all of this is Mormonism doesn't subdivide into hierarchies as effectively is 'cause solecism subdivides into hierarchies where the, the church would have to decide to do something criminal itself. For Mormonism to do something.

Criminal was the only subdivided hierarchies. Really work was in Mormonism is the giant MLM scams that are run throughout the church. Okay. And, and very commonly run if, if you keep in mind, but they just don't break with the church's central teaching. So they're, they're okay to do. Whereas you know, the Catholic church.

Even was in these time periods, would've been telling the mob and the mafia when they went to confessions. You know, you should really stop doing this. And the mob and the mafia guys would be like, yeah, but I can just confess. Right? And they're like, well, I mean technically, but the, the teacher doesn't want you doing this.

And they'd be like, well, I'm helping the community, you know, the, the society at large doesn't care about us. And I would assume that some, you know, given that we know, you know, the Jesuits. Who promoted things like communist revolutions and stuff like this. I wouldn't be surprised if some were condoned by local parishes.

So I had this moment of, you know, I should probably look into this a bit more, and it is so much worse than I thought. , So the Vatican Bank, , has been linked to mafia activities through allegations of money laundering. A prominent case involves Robert Calvi, known as God's Banker, who is closely tied to the Vatican Bank, found dead under Black fires bridge in London, 1982.

Investigated and suggested the Sicilian mafia, particularly the colon. Clan used Vatican Bank to launder money. Journalist Mariah Anton RA's book, Laina de Mafia. Details how Cal Valley's activities. Connected the mafia and to Vatican financiers. Then you have Michelle Sonta, another financier with Vatican Bank ties was implicated in selling over 1 billion in counterfeit securities to the Gambino crime syndicate in New York Post on Exclaim.

That Sonata acted as a go-between for the Vatican Bank and the Mafia. Though there is not conclusive without further evidence. , Then you have Archbishop Paul McCarson. Markus, , president of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989 who was accused of facilitating financial dealings, was mafia linked figures.

then, The, the Mafia using Catholic rituals to bolster its legitimacy, often with the support from local clergy. For instance, the mafia members have been documented leading processions with Statue of the Virgin Mary, or financing religious events to project an image of piety and community leadership in southern Italy, particularly Sicily and Calabria, these practices were common until recent church reforms.

Malcolm Collins: Even if the Central Catholic Authority would've said, no, don't do this. You're not gonna get that as much was in Mormonism. You're gonna get much more pushback and much more, Hey, don't do this. Good heaven. Well, and it also wouldn't have made sense to other US cultural groups. Again, think about something like, you know, the, the, like backwards cultural group, right? Mm-hmm. The idea that one family would like achieve so much status that they were now policing a bunch of other families that family would suddenly have a target on their back by everyone else in the community. I. Because they think they're better than everyone else.

Whereas with in Catholic culture, you, you wouldn't necessarily reflexively everybody, let's turn on whoever is the strongest right now. Mm-hmm. You would see that reflexively within backwards culture. So I think that that's another thing that allowed these networks to build up

Simone Collins: mm, much

Malcolm Collins: larger than the repercussions

Simone Collins: were very different.

Malcolm Collins: Repercussions were very different. And also something to keep in mind is a lot of these groups had existing organizations that like them in the countries that they came from the mom and the, so they're just

Simone Collins: replicating a business model that they were. Very familiar with to begin with. Right. The model that

Malcolm Collins: was made necessary by the incompetence of Catholic governments.

If you have a particularly corrupt and incompetent government, you're going to be much more likely to try to build a shadow or counter government. Mm-hmm. And particularly in the cases of the Sicilians and the Irish it wasn't even their own government that needed to be incompetent because they were ruled by other people who had conquered it.

Simone Collins: Hmm. One thing I'm also thinking about is. The, it was a Ethereum, right, who wrote about non-linear ethnic niches, and we did an episode on them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: That a, a really common theme was that this is dirty work that no one else wants to do. Which criminal activity that, that, that's not about right, like no one else wants to do it.

Plus you have you have the ability to exploit cheap or non-paid labor much more easily. Which I could also see like Catholic networks and families and because so much of this was family based, there probably was a lot of unpaid labor. So then you end up creating these moats based on even just those two factors.

Yeah. So that could be it. Plus I imagine like cheap credit, which is another really big factor of this. Yeah, like you're probably getting family support as, as these syndicates expand, for example. Yeah. You're probably getting. Cheap credit, for lack of a better term. I mean, what did the mob do, but often lend money, right?

Like they. To a certain extent even specialized in it collecting. Yeah. Yeah. So, no,

Malcolm Collins: I I think that you're, you're absolutely right here. And I've also noted before in episodes where people say that like, Jews are nepotistic. I'm like, Jews are nowhere nearest nepotistic as Catholics Catholics are by, did call the United

Simone Collins: States.

What, what was the name of the family structure you talked about? Like. Non amoral. Amoral. Familial, amoral. Familial. Okay. But,

Malcolm Collins: but, but well, this is the interesting thing, will, people would be like, yeah, but Catholics are more nepotistic to family members and Jews are more nepotistic to any Jew. And I'm like, that's just not true.

I, I, I have seen it. It's also

Simone Collins: hard for me to say it's nepotism if it's. Like another Jew instead of a family member. I dunno.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Find nepotism. I would say that something that came in mind is I'm not anti-nepotism. Nepotism to me actually makes a lot of sense. Well that was

Simone Collins: another thing that came up in the discussion of non-linear ethnic networks, was that the nepotism that took place within them.

That is to say that, you know, like the. The, the Thai people would only hire Thai people and, you know, the, the, the nail salon training center started to only train and Thai like they classes, not in English, but what I mean, you, but like the point is, you know, that they're culturally aligned, like it's a smart move.

You don't have to do, no,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. It is not just a cultural alignment, but like why would you not do more vetting on somebody who is culturally more distant from people? It's not

Simone Collins: just the vetting either. I mean, the vetting is pre-done and you have, you have more trust in the vetting, but also there's more of, there's, there's a higher cost.

To, to disappointing the person who hires you because your cousin's reputation is on the line. Your family's reputation is on the line. Like, you're not just disappointing a stranger, your entire family is going to dunk on you forever if you, if you make them look bad.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, important. Yeah. Alright. Well I think we have come to an answer on this. I am really excited I got the chance to talk this through with you. I thought this would be a spicy topic. One of the things that always gets me about this particular topic is why I. Like people would aspire to Catholic majority countries when they live in such poverty and do such a bad job governing like this.

This is something that's, yeah. Well,

Simone Collins: but you know, this is something Dan h Hess wanted to come on the podcast and talk about eventually is, is I. You know, maybe something different than a GDP, you know, that that's focused more on like, how many kids are people having, are, are they family? They have fewer

Malcolm Collins: kids too,

Simone Collins: Latin America.

But now they are, now Catholics are, but historically when you're talking about like in general this impoverishment, I mean they, maybe I

Malcolm Collins: agree with what you're saying, like, like Southern Europe has way fewer the way lower fertility rate than Northern Europe. Like it's. So Latin America has a way lower fertility rate now than than America especially when you control for income.

And, and the question is, is or at least like half of the countries in Latin America are below America now, and the rate's dropping like way faster when you control for income. And the question is, is I. With all of this what, what I just don't understand and, and what I'm pointing out here, is how, like a human living today can look at the consequences of being a Catholic majority country and want to attempt to replicate that.

Which I actually think is one of the reasons why this criminality comes out as well is that when morality is community enforced, it's easy to create alternate forms of morality instead of when morality is self enforced. Mm-hmm. And was in Catholic communities, morality is more community enforced than individually self reinforced?

Simone Collins: Well, I think in any system. When rules or norms are exogenous, that is to say imposed from the outside rather than endogenous. You get lower fidelity and adherence. Like just in general? Yeah, just how when you know you're paid to do a hobby that you used to, like, you don't like it as much, like it just, it's not ideal in my view for anything to be exogenous when you can help it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and, and I think, well, you know, we have a lot of Catholic fans. I, I suspect one will explain that to us on, on Discord, the disco No school us in the comments also, please like, and subscribe. Yeah. Why? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Like, and subscribing all that, but why the, the drive to, you know, convert people into a religious framework or attempt to create a country under.

A religious framework that in every single modern context has led to poverty and unhappiness in the populations where it is dominant. Like I, I don't Malcolm in in low fertility rates as well. Like I don't get the drive.

One thing I have heard from some Catholics, so this, this could be an explanation here, is it's like the church was infiltrated by a malevolent group that wanted to tear down the Catholic tradition from the inside. But if that's the case, like the core of the Catholic church is the papacy, and if the papacy has been used to destroy the Catholic church, it's sort of self invalidating.

Malcolm Collins: I, I guess what they would say is, well, we're trying to create a new form of Catholicism.

Yeah. I mean, I think

Simone Collins: the, the, the Catholic, the Catholics that are watching this podcast that we talk to at least. Their communities do not at all resemble other Catholic communities that I'm familiar with in the past, and these are strong communities. They are smart. Like I'm like, oh, I'm all like, this let's this, this should be Cat Catholicism now.

These people are amazing. I like it. I want more of them. Let's go. So I, I think that over time the Catholic Church is going to. Shift or you'll have splinter factions. I don't know, but I am totally in favor of at least the Catholics that we know who follow it, trying

Malcolm Collins: to create something. Well, and I think everybody needs to create something new.

So that's not something unique to Catholicism. Mm-hmm. You know, what survives you know, Protestantism, what if it's, what if it's techno puritanism? Right. You know what? Survives of Mormonism is likely gonna need to be something different than what Mormonism looks like today. What? You know what? Yeah. So, so that's not a bad thing, that there is this internal drive for.

The recreation of a Catholic identity around what I'd even call is, is because the way that Catholics approach this is really interesting to me. Like while we're neo traditionalists, IE we take some traditional ideas and we refind them. What Catholics will often do is create new traditions while assigning a false antiquity to them to create things that, well Jews do

Simone Collins: that too, and well Mormons do that too.

Come on Malcolm, we'll make this a Catholic thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, Jews, Mormons are less focused on the antiquity giving their traditions value. Oh, no. I

Simone Collins: mean, like the Egyptians and the Israelites like that, and the, the, you know, early Native Americans are like, come on, Malcolm. Oh, true, true, true, true. Don't you even

Note here. The reason why I had forgotten that Mormons do this all the time is because when Mormons do it, it's so laughably bad that in my head I assume that like nobody actually believes it. , Whereas when Catholics do this, it's pretty convincing. And so, you know, there's that moment in the where I'm like, oh, this tradition has a lot of antiquity.

Then I look into it and I'm like, oh no, we just made this up. Like 20 years ago, or like a hundred years ago. Um, so it's, it's, it's

not to knock on Mormons.

Simone Collins: not to knock on any of these groups.

I love them all, but

Malcolm Collins: all right. Love you to De Simone. Have a spectacular day. I love you too, Malcolm.

Simone Collins: I cannot begin to tell you how much I look forward to these conversations. Like there's such the motivation for me at the end of the day.

Malcolm Collins: Really, this is exciting. Well, other people look forward to them as well. Isn't that nice?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Cool. Smart people too. Read the comments on some of our videos and I'm.

Just impressed. Quality audience. All smart people. Yeah. Yeah. This is not, this is not normal. YouTube video comments, at least for the videos that I watch that aren't our, well, maybe it's just the ones

Malcolm Collins: of ours that haven't gone viral that you're getting all the nice comments on, and on the viral videos you're getting standard YouTubers.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. There is a little bit of that going on. Yes. All right. You know.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com