Rome, Italy, Sep 29, 2022 / 11:00 am (CNA).
The victory of Giorgia Meloni and her “Fratelli d’Italia” (Brothers of Italy) party in Italy’s recent election made global headlines.
Meloni won with a platform that supports traditional families, national identity, and the country’s Christian roots. In a speech earlier this year, she said “no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology.”
As the leader of a party that originates from a postwar movement born from the ashes of fascism, Meloni can neither be called a post-fascist nor simply a far-right leader.
Her international position is Atlanticist, and she has supported Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, congratulating him on his election.
On European issues, Meloni is critical of how Europe runs the risk of imposing policies on nation-states, but she is not against the principle of a European Union.
In short, the reality of Meloni’s politics is much more nuanced than it may seem at first glance. This explains why Catholic hierarchies in Italy have shown a degree of openness toward the politician following her electoral victory.
Italian political background
Italy’s history plays an essential role in understanding this reality. After fascism, the Italian state was reconstituted with a powerful Catholic party, the Christian Democrats, which for decades was the undisputed leader in the elections.
Catholics had been among the first opponents of fascism.
The Italian Constitution was inspired by a group of Catholics who, in 1943, already toward the end of the war, had gathered in the monastery of Camaldoli in Tuscany to define the principles for a post-fascist state.
In the early 1990s, a widespread corruption scandal in Italian politics called Tangentopoli wiped out traditional parties, including the Christian Democrats.
New parties arose, and members of the Christian Democrats joined these or were part of varying political formations.
The current Italian Democratic Party, considered center-left, is made up of former members of the Christian Democrats as well as members of the old left parties.
The secretary, Enrico Letta, had a background with the Christian Democrats. Similarly, parties considered to be center-right in Italy, such as Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, include among their ranks heirs of the Christian Democrats but also former socialists and former members of the Italian Liberal Party, traditionally secular and in some respects even anti-clerical.
The Italian Church had initially supported the so-called center party, which was the first direct heir of the Christian Democrats. Soon, however, the policy of the Italian bishops became not to support political formations but rather the values and themes promoted within the various parties — no longer, therefore, a Catholic party, but Catholics in politics.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Cardinal Camillo Ruini was the Italian Bishops’ Conference president. In the face of tremendous parliamentary battles, Ruini coined the expression “nonnegotiable values.”
By nonnegotiable values, he first meant the importance of life at a time when political actions promoted euthanasia, in-vitro-fertilization, and even abortion as a matter of personal conscience.
After the bishops’ conference presidency of Ruini and that of Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the question of nonnegotiable values has become more nuanced.
With Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who became president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference in 2014, the Church in Italy has aimed more at a concrete look at the issues of poverty and the economy, arguably losing sight, somewhat, of the values platform.
It was a strategic choice dictated by the fact that Catholics in politics were increasingly marginalized and that the social doctrine of the Church took less and less space in the formation of the new ruling class. There were attempts to create new platforms of Catholic culture in the early 2010s. These were sidelined by an economic-institutional emergency that had led to economist Mario Monti leading the government.
To all this, it must be added that the culture in Italy has been strongly forged by leftist thinking. It should be remembered that Italy had the largest Communist Party beyond the Iron Curtain after the war.
The Communist Party strongly developed an anti-fascist resistance narrative. Yet, the communist partisans were also authors of heinous murders and systematic elimination of priests — for instance, the recently beatified seminarian Rolando Rivi.
The Catholic platform in Italy
The historical context explains how Catholic thought in Italy was forged, especially in the years following the Second Vatican Council. Then, Catholicism in Italy fluctuated between the need for identity and the narrative of a rupture, which wanted a Church more committed to social issues and less to the centers of power.
A case in point: The latest bill against homophobia, which could have introduced gender classes in schools, was strongly supported by the Italian Democratic Party, led by the former Christian Democrat Letta.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Catholic vote in Italy has rewarded Giorgia Meloni. Lacking a political party of reference, the Catholic center looked to the party that most corresponded to specific values.
Meloni’s voters are likely people who attended Family Day events held in Italy in 2007 and 2016 to oppose two bills on the civil unions.
The organizer of the most recent Family Day, Massimo Gandolfini, said in 2019: “We recognize that Brothers of Italy and Giorgia Meloni are pursuing a policy to the advantage of the family, for the defense of life from conception to natural death, and the educational freedom of parents.”
On the other hand, Meloni has been met with skepticism and concerns over leading a party with a fascist legacy.
Much attention was paid to her meeting with Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship. But there were other talks with Vatican figures. Rumors also speak of contact with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state.
Added to this is a meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. In an interview with the Italian bishops’ newspaper Avvenire on Sept. 28, Zuppi made it clear that he knew Meloni well. He also described the Church in Italy as committed to collaborating with all parties.
To fully understand the context, it is worth remembering that Zuppi is an exponent of Sant’Egidio, a movement closer to the demands of the center-left than the center-right.
The Italian bishops’ position
In general, the Italian bishops do not endorse any particular political candidate, keep a low profile, and only issue statements regarding the bishops’ conference president or possibly the secretary of state.
Meloni also kept a low profile. Compared with others, her campaign did not exploit religious faith. While setting what is generally considered a conservative tone, Meloni’s rhetoric was political, not religious.
The president of the “Fratelli” is described by those who know her as someone “who considers herself part of the Church, very respectful of Pope Francis even when perhaps she does not understand or share certain [aspects] of his statements or acts.”
She was also present at the Communion and Liberation Meeting in Rimini, which takes place every August, and spoke about Catholic social teaching.
Brothers of Italy and the Italian Church
Cardinal Ruini, whose voice still carries weight, said in an interview with Corriere Della Sera on Sept. 28, “intellectuals are on the left, but the real country is on the right.” He acknowledged the reality of Meloni’s role and her party’s election.
In doing so, Ruini pointed out that the Catholic world in Italy has been closer to the so-called center-left rather than the center-right. In Italy, as elsewhere, there is a perception of a deep rift between those who stand up for nonnegotiable values and those who instead support a more pragmatic approach to dealing with contemporary challenges. But this is a perception, and reality is more nuanced.
Perhaps now is the time for a nuanced reconciliation of opposites for the Italian Catholic world. Giorgia Meloni is not a Catholic politician. The values she espouses, however, also won over the Catholic electorate. This is a reality to be ignored at peril.
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We can see how effective the “more pragmatic approach to dealing with contemporary challenges” has been if we assess the influence of Catholicism in the world before and after the implementation of Vatican II.
She’s intelligent enough to realize electibility requires nuance, a certain openness to less than conservation matters. How she handles that remains to be seen, although her strong Catholic conservative views indicate moderation rather than a fascist posture [commitment to Christian principles cannot be confused with Fascism]. Italy definitely requires the principle values of Faith, family, nation that Giorgia firmly espouses. She has a welcome fire.
The Left in Europe, primarily EU president avowed opponent Ursula von der Leyen [Ursula says with seeming dark intent she has ‘tools’] and the morally deranged American Leftist media who label her a Mussolini type. But then we have outstanding Catholic nominalist Joey Biden to guide our sentiments regarding justice, or is it injustice considering the Nazi type FBI raid on a Catholic pro lifer over a misdemeanor for protecting his son from abuse.
All considered it’s politically the best that’s happened to Italy since De Gasperi.
I was impressed with what she said in a speech I heard online. It all sounded very good & what I would support. The only thing that raised concern was her reference to “financial speculators.” I’m not sure what she meant by that or what that term means in Italy.
Whenever you have populism, you have to worry about antisemitism, but I don’t have any reason to think that’s what she intended. And these days you’re just as likely to find antisemitism on the left as on the far right.
I don’t understand why so many are attracted to fascism. In the last century, we saw how it almost took over the world, before it was stopped. And we saw countless tens of millions of human beings die because of it. Seems far too many people can’t or won’t learn from history.
Care to define “fascism”? And explain how it relates to this (from the article): “Meloni won with a platform that supports traditional families, national identity, and the country’s Christian roots. In a speech earlier this year, she said ‘no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology.'” Sounds very much in keeping with what the last few popes have been saying in various ways.
Delusional much? Tolerance for others doesnt dictate that you must tolerate such numbers of people entering illegally that your own nation and culture move into oblivion and disappear. There is NOTHING wrong with caring about your own language, religion and culture and wanting to preserve it as the majority in your own nation. Sadly the word is full of the very poor, with whom we have NOTHING in common from a religious, cultural or historic perspective, who would be delighted to move to other countries if possible and live on those taxpayer’s cash. Along with the honest poor come crooks, gang members, criminals.Every country is entitled to control the number of those who immigrate there until they can be acculturated and absorbed.In the US we dole out PLENTY of foreign aid and therefore owe these immigrants nothing. Most certainly, we do not owe them our extinction as a people. Meloni has hit the nail on the head. It remains to be seen if a certain leftist segment of US population can emerge from the torrent of propaganda they have been fed and see the light as have the Italians.
Thanks for the historical context.
I am cautiously optimistic about Georgia Meloni.
Babylon Bee had great fun with the media’s breathless portrayal of her as a far-right, extremist, neo-Nazi fascist. Says more about the media than about her.
Its very nice to see that some nations in Europe are waking up to reality. Maybe we will have the same luck this election in the US. Running nations with no borders at all, and allowing brutality and crime to result, is not the best way to run any nation and expect it not to crumble into chaos. When individuals realize that their government will not longer protect them from the violent, most especially the violent who are NOT their OWN CITIZENS, there is eventually a breakdown of civil law. Those who have walked unimpeded into the nation and bring violence with them as statistics show, and beyond crime, create an oppressive burden for the working class who are forced to support them, will be the reason for an eventual revolt.People will only watch crimes committed with impunity for so long. More disgusting and pandering, is allowing them to do so because they fit some “minority” profile. As if that were a reason to turn a blind eye to crimes they have committed. Allowing such situations is cultural suicide. Our leftist media in the US will continue their fantasy that this woman is a fascist. That is yet another smear tactic, whose effects I believe have worn very thin .I wish her well.
I agree completely with this Andrea’s political Italian synthesis. Only I disagree with a comment, in which I’ll postpone the best statist up to Aldo Moro, murdered by a strange concoction of political interests or, better, non-interests (by the way that was a turning point, on the connections between the great blizzard of ’78, three popes in one year, abortion’s right establishment in the Italian law).
I start from Mussolini’s diary “Diuturna”, 1924: “Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, immortal truth then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy which he is capable.”
Fascism was the hard version of relativism. Here it’s leading to Brave New World—the soft version of relativism. As stated by Peter Kreeft, the modern, democratic, pluralistic, secular, scientific, technological, industrial, post-Enlightenment, post-human, post-everything West civilization is the first society in history whose mind molders are moral relativists. A world in which the meaning and goal of the human being are materially limited to temporary and transitory contents (the most popular concentrations being economics and government, the acquisition of power, prestige, money, luxury, pleasurable satisfaction, and wealth). In other words, a New World Order without God.
No other society in history has ever survived without rejecting moral relativism – expressed in burning issues, for example, the frontal attack on the Christian image of man by the ideologies of posthumanism and gender madness or the crisis of the Church in Europe – and believing in moral absolutes.
To quote Dr. Kreeft again, liberals prioritize personal freedom. Conservatives prioritize objective truth. Liberals absolutize persons and see truth as relative to persons.
Conservatives absolutize truth and see persons as relative to truth. (Both are right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. Both persons – mercy –, and truth – justice –, is absolute.)
Liberals love the new, conservatives the old. Liberals impose the simplicity of logic on the complexity of history, and they also impose the complexity of history onto the simplicity of logic. Conservatives, on the contrary, emphasize objective truth and fidelity to the old rather than subjective sincerity, love, mercy, and openness. The divisions the Church is dealing with right now have to do with the same tensions in attitudes towards these two goals, justice or mercy, inclusivism or universalism, fundamentalism or modernism.
But that, I also fear, is a matter of temperament rather than ideological content, for anti-Establishment liberals turn into Establishment conservatives when they succeed.
Mother Teresa of Kolkata overcame the “liberal”/”conservative” divide and unites the positive in both while rejecting the negative. She did not compromise but accomplished a “higher synthesis”, because in her vision the “medium” unifying the personal and the communitarian in the earthly “polis” is not founded on the “Geist” (reason, language, the abstract universal, the cosmopolitan and the global, language), or on the free individual willing (social contract), or on nature (e.g., the ecosystem), finally, on religion (messianic nationalism).
In the Son of God, she, in fact, found what is maximally universal and simultaneously maximally personalized.
In a different way, we wish Giorgia has to perform an analogous difficult task.
Outside that fundament, the medium for the human community will necessarily be impersonal, anonymous, consumerist, or something violent and deceitful that led to Auschwitz in Germany or Communism in Russia.
“In the Son of God, she, in fact, found what is maximally universal and simultaneously maximally personalized”, a profound insight. Although, what he reveals of his essence transcends, is neither old nor new, rather it’s eternal.