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Mob, Mafia, MS-13: Why Catholics Created Most US Criminal Orgs
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 contra
Published on 6 months, 3 weeks ago