How the Catholic Church Lost Italy to the Far Right - The New York Times

On paper, Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, is a dubious poster child for Catholicism. Mr. Salvini is divorced. He has two children by two women and is in a relationship with a third. But that hasn’t stopped him from reinventing himself as Italy’s Catholic-in-chief. “I am the last of the good Christians,” Mr. Salvini, 46, said recently, during an appearance on the popular TV show “Non è l’Arena.” “I defend our history and the existence of Catholic schools,” he said during the same appearance. “If I believe in God,” he asked rhetorically, “and if I even ask for Mary’s protection, does that bother anybody?”

It bothers the Pope, for one.

Mr. Salvini, who also serves as interior minister, is the leader of the League, a former secessionist movement that he has rebranded as a nationalist force by, among other tactics, stoking anti-immigration fears. His rallying cry, “Italians first,” matches Donald Trump’s “America first.” Mr. Salvini is also the kingmaker of the unorthodox government coalition the League formed last year with the anti-corruption Five Star Movement, making Italy a unique experiment in populism.

The League’s embrace of Christianity is a recent addition, however. In the years following its founding in the 1990s, the party was often in tension with the Vatican hierarchy: It largely took up a libertarian outlook on issues like family, abortion, end-of-life questions and religious freedom, rarely putting them at the core of its agenda.

And yet speaking in Milan a few days before the European Parliament election in May, Mr. Salvini invoked the names of the patron saints of Europe. “We entrust our destiny, our future and the peace and prosperity of our peoples to them,” he proclaimed, and then became more intimate. “Personally, I entrust Italy, my life and your lives to the immaculate heart of Mary, who I’m sure will lead us to victory,” he said, gripping a rosary in his right hand. When the League obtained more than 34 percent of the vote, becoming the leading political party in Italy, Mr. Salvini thanked “the one who is up there” and kissed the rosary during a news conference. A few days later, in a magazine interview, he expanded on his devotion to the Virgin Mary and announced his wish to walk the Way of Saint James, a popular pilgrimage route, one day.

Source: The New York Times

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