It seems to be generally accepted opinion today, not only in some sectors of the historiography, but at the institutional level of our country that the Catholic church constituted a bonding agent - perhaps one of the few and certainly one of the most effective among the many realities that were the result of a process of unification that was anything but spontaneous In particular, the Church is identified in the figure of the parish priest (to whom the Council of Trent had assigned the responsibility of guiding society), who continued to perform the role of mediator between the community and the (ecclesiastical and civil) institutions of the new State, in which he turned out to be the most functional element - in some cases the only one - connecting the populations to unified Italy top the state.
Keywords: Chiesa cattolica, parroco, istituzioni, comunità, Stato