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Pope Francis prays for Italy as Giorgia Meloni becomes first female prime minister

Courtney Mares   By Courtney Mares for CNA

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), speaks at a press conference at the party electoral headquarters overnight on Sept. 26, 2022. in Rome. Italy’s national elections on Sept. 25 saw voters poised to elect Meloni, a Catholic mother, as the country's first female prime minister. / Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images.

Rome Newsroom, Oct 24, 2022 / 05:15 am (CNA).

Pope Francis offered a prayer for Italy on Sunday as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the country’s first female leader.

“And today, at the start of a new government, let us pray for unity and peace in Italy,” the pope said at the end of his Angelus address on Oct. 23.

Hours after the handover ceremony between Meloni and her predecessor Mario Draghi in Rome’s Chigi Palace, the new prime minister thanked Pope Francis for his comments.

Meloni wrote on social media: “I thank His Holiness #PopeFrancis for his thoughts on Italy on this very important day for the government I have the honor to preside over.”

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops’ conference, sent his “sincerest congratulations” to Meloni after the new government’s swearing-in ceremony at the Quirinal Palace.

“With you also opens a historic page for our country: the new government is the first led by a woman in the role of Prime Minister,” Zuppi said.

The cardinal highlighted the many challenges that Italy is facing, listing what he described as the Italian bishops’ main concerns: “poverty, the demographic winter, the protection of the elderly, regional disparities, the ecological transition and the energy crisis, employment and job opportunities for young people, the reception and integration of migrants, the streamlining of bureaucratic procedures, and reforms of state democratic structures and electoral law.”

Zuppi added: “Looming over all these is the tragedy of the ongoing war that requires the commitment of all, in full harmony with Europe, in the inescapable and urgent search for a just path that can finally lead to peace.”

The cardinal promised that the Catholic Church in Italy “will not fail to engage in a constructive dialogue inspired solely by the desire to contribute to the pursuit of the common good of the country and to the protection of the inviolable rights of the person and the community.”

Meloni has described herself in speeches as a Christian and has publicly expressed her admiration for St. John Paul II and her desire to meet Pope Francis in person.

“I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian, and you can’t take that away from me,” she said in a speech in 2019.

Meloni’s party won the general election on Sept. 25 with a platform that supports traditional families, tax cuts, cracking down on illegal immigration, and Italy’s Christian roots. In a speech earlier this year, she said, “no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology, yes to the culture of life.”

The prime minister heads the Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012. Before and amid her party’s electoral victory, Meloni’s views have been described in the media as “far-right” and even as “fascist” — labels that she has rejected.

In an interview with Reuters, Meloni dismissed any suggestion that her party was nostalgic for the fascist era and distanced herself from comments she made in 1996, as a teenager, when she said Benito Mussolini “was a good politician.”

Italy’s new government comprises a coalition that includes Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

Meloni delivered a strong rebuke to Berlusconi last week and said that the former prime minister risked losing influence in the new government after Berlusconi boasted of having recently exchanged gifts of vodka and sparkling Italian red wine with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Italy, with its head high, is part of Europe and the (NATO) Atlantic alliance,” Meloni said, according to AP. “Whoever doesn’t agree with this cornerstone cannot be part of the government, at the cost of not having a government.”


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5 Comments

  1. Questions persist on where Ms Giorgia really stands on the issues. It’s not clear whether Fratelli Di’Italia are dyed in the wool Nato aficionados. They’re on record anti EU and extremely nationalist, certainly against the Italian Catholic bishops “reception and integration of migrants” agenda.
    Her bashing of Berlusconi’s Putin camaraderie is likely political posturing. She knew of it all along and accepting his backing. Usually, intelligent politicos ease in their less popular agendas rather than create an immediate uproar. Nato alliance nevertheless is beneficial, although its current Ukraine policy seems irrational.
    Hopefully her strong faith will moderate where necessary. The apparent good is an expected resurgence of faith practice, moral rather than immoral government policies related to abortion and LGBT, cultural killing Muslim migration. There’s possibility in this that Hungary, already in favor of her ascendancy, perhaps Poland may initiate a similar trend throughout Europe. Prayers for the best.

    • Insofar as nationalism, Giorgia Meloni is an enthusiastic admirer of John Paul II, and likely aware of his preference of the term patriotism, rather than militarist nationalism,
      “Strikingly, Meloni has said she has failed at times to understand Pope Francis. In her autobiography, while Meloni called St John Paul II the greatest pope of the modern era, and even a saint, she said of the incumbent, even though I’m Catholic and I’ve never allowed myself to criticize a pope, I admit that I haven’t always understood Pope Francis” (Catholic Herald 9.26.22).

      • I agree Giorgia Meloni, though I would say more and more time for humble heartfelt meek and generous prayer for the Church for all her members beginning with the gloriously reigning Pope and going all the way down to the three most annoying parishioners I have to deal with each week or the priest who has most ignored you or whatever it is that bothers us. The most putting our virtues in our face to the test we may even find that after a time we are praying a lot more. I think this will do far more to promote a real and lasting reform of the Church than any amount of activism of the usual sort.

  2. Perhaps Prime Minister Meloni as a Catholic is in a unique position to advise the Church about its current governance. In a spirit of humility, the Vatican ought then to listen to what she has to say in that regard.

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