ROME – An unusually direct and public clash between church and state is unfolding in Italy, where both Pope Francis and the country’s bishops are perceived to be challenging the center-right government over both migration and proposals for greater regional autonomy.
In a clear sign of those tensions, the leader of Italy’s far-right anti-immigrant Lega party took to Facebook late Wednesday evening to ask his followers, “What do you think of the bishops’ attacks?” – provoking a predictable cascade of critical replies.
Typical was the reaction of a follower who wrote, “They would do better to focus on a church that’s losing more and more faithful, rather than interfering in Italian politics! Maybe they could start paying taxes on their property and all the money they rake in under the table through the collection plate, not to mention inheritances, contributions they ask for weddings, etc.”
“Priests should be priests, not establishment politicians,” another wrote.
The war of words opened up on Tuesday, when Bishop Francesco Savino of Cassano allo Ionio, a diocese located in the southern Italian region of Calabria, who also serves as vice president of the Italian bishops’ conference, gave an interview to La Repubblica, the country’s most widely read daily newspaper, in which he directly criticized the government’s autonomy plan.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made a proposal for what’s known as “differentiated autonomy” a key domestic priority, according to which the country’s 20 regions would be given more power over how tax revenues are collected and spent, and over public services such as healthcare and education.
Critics of the law argue that it will worsen long-standing disparities between Italy’s affluent north and its chronically underdeveloped south. In his interview, Savino explicitly rejected the plan, warning that it’s a “Trojan horse for creating two Italys, one prosperous and the other abandoned to its fate.”
“Not only would we have as many Italys as we do regions, but there’s a risk of a Wild West in the poor ones,” Savino said. “The few resources, and the arbitrariness with which they will be distributed, will trigger jealousies and conflicts.”
Savino predicted the autonomy measure will produce “more poverty, more depopulation, and greater differences with the north,” while warning that the north too would pay a price, citing the Latin phrase simul stabunt simul cadent: “Either we stand together, or we fall together.”
In the same interview, Savino also waded directly into another debate that’s dividing opinion not only in the country, but even within Meloni’s governing coalition: A proposal, known as Ius scholae, to expand citizenship opportunities for the children of migrants who complete a cycle of study to demonstrate competence in the Italian language and history.
The proposal is backed by the center-right Forza Italia party founded by the late ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which is currently led by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, but opposed both by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party and also Salvini’s Lega.
“I regard it as an act of justice, of civilization, and thus of democracy,” Savino said in calling for the Ius scholae measure to be adopted “now.”
“We’re a people that has always emigrated, in the Americas, in Australia, in Germany and Switzerland,” he said. “Too often that’s forgotten … What are they afraid of? An identity that isn’t open to the world is destined for suicide.”
Savino’s explicitly political rhetoric was followed on Wednesday by more indirect, but still pointed, comments from Pope Francis during his Wednesday general audience, in which the pontiff called rejecting migrants a “grave sin.”
Pointing to people who die at sea or in deserts attempting to reach Europe, Francis said “what kills migrants is our indifference and a throw-away attitude.”
Francis said it’s obviously desirable to avoid such tragedies, but warned “it’s not through more restrictive laws, it’s not through the militarization of borders and turning people away that we’ll obtain that result.”
“We’ll obtain it,” he said, “by expanding safe and legal pathways for migrants, facilitating refuge for those fleeing wars, violence, persecution, and so many other calamities.”
Backlash to the church’s push on the autonomy issue and the citizenship debate has been especially vocal from Italian conservatives.
“I’m sorry, but the church needs to study the law better,” said Luca Zaia, governor of the northern Veneto region and a member of the Lega party, referring to the autonomy proposal. On the migrants issue, parliamentarian Igor Iezzi, also a member of the Lega, said that the church “should be clear with its faithful and say how many migrants it’s going to host in the Vatican.”
Senator Tilde Minasi asked if the church plans to devote its income from Italy’s church tax, which generates around $1 billion in income annually, to caring for migrants, while parliamentarian Rossano Sasso questioned the role of church-run non-profits in facilitating the entry of migrants into Italy.
“Promoting clandestine immigration, departures and deaths at sea, and financing questionable personalities in social centers, is an attitude that many Catholics don’t share,” Sasso said.
On the other hand, not everyone in the ruling coalition has voiced opposition. Tajani, who many analysts believe wants to position his Forza Italia party as the leading centrist force in the country, was recently in Verona for a gathering of Catholic scouts where he participated in a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, president of the bishops’ conference, exchanging friendly greetings afterwards.
One Italian media outlet has dubbed the Forza Italia leader “The Pius Tajani,” suggesting he’s trying to position his party as the “Catholic” destination of choice for Italian voters amid the mounting current conflicts.
Although polls currently show Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party as the strongest political force in the country, with roughly 30 percent support to Forza Italia’s 9 percent, Tajani does appear to be gaining ground personally. One recent survey found him to be the second most admired politician in the country after Meloni, with the prime minister being named by 43 percent of Italians and Tajani by 36.
