On Sunday, Pope Francis ate lunch with hundreds of refugees and homeless people, calling for a renewed commitment to helping society’s weakest while denouncing the “sirens of populism” which drown out cries for help. As reported by the Associated Press, the Pope celebrated World Day of the Poor by inviting around 1,300 people into the Vatican for lunch. But it was the words during the Mass which preceded it which made headlines, with Pope Francis denouncing not only what he called the indifference the world shows to migrants and the poor, but the “prophets of doom” who fuel fear and conspiracies about migrants.
He said: “Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions.” The words seemed deliberately timed. Just weeks ago Italy got a new Prime Minister, the nationalist Giorgia Meloni, who won on the back of her strong language on migration, with Italy having recently kept four rescue boats at sea for days until finally allowing three to disembark. Meloni’s civilisational Christianity (she once spoke of “the universality of the cross” and said “radical Islam” is “menacing our roots”) sounds much closer to the language of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán than a pontiff who, on the same day that Italians were going to the polls, urged Italians to help migrants.
This is the same Pope, after all, who has called on Catholics to take in refugees, having recently asked “why not make a policy of the West where immigrants are included with the principle that the migrant should be welcomed, accompanied, promoted, and integrated?” He said on his return from Kazakhstan that “migration I think at this time should be taken seriously, because it raises the intellectual and congenial value of the West a little bit.” Speaking recently, Pope Francis also said: “Migrants are to be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated.”
Meanwhile the Pope’s recent words are likely to be interpreted as a rebuke of the policies of Catholic and Christian leaders like Meloni, Orbán and the ruling Law and Justice party in Poland, all of which have appealed to voters with a strong stance on immigration. Meloni, for instance, has said Italians needed to “repatriate the migrants back to their countries and then sink the boats that rescued them.” This is the same Meloni meanwhile who, in 2020, said: “I’m a believer and I listen to the words of His Holiness, but on a political level I don’t always share them.” How, many will ask, can the Pope’s vision find common ground with an Italian PM who says “no to mass immigration.”
While many nationalist and conservative politicians are strong on immigration, they also tend to approach other cultural matters from a civilisationalist position. This is especially true of Hungary’s Prime Minister who not only adopts a strong stance on immigration but on the survival of Hungary as a Christian conservative country in other respects. Yet the fact Pope Francis appears to be on an opposing side to a leader like Viktor Orbán, a man who has overseen a constitution with references to God and Christianity, who has funded Christian schools, who subsidises parenthood, and who has enshrined “the life of a foetus will be protected from conception” in the constitution, will feel strange to many Catholics.
The Pope’s warning about populism came as another Catholic conservative leader is making headway in the US. Florida Governor, Ron DeSanctis – a man who made headlines for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard – is fast emerging as the successor to Donald Trump. DeSanctis stormed to victory in his second gubernatorial election, winning by nearly 20 per cent. As Governor, for example, DeSanctis approved a bill which bans elective abortion after 15 weeks.
At face value many of these measures would seem to align with Church doctrine. But it is increasingly clear that the right-wing populism and civilisational interpretation of Christianity of DeSanctis, Meloni and Orbán, as well as other governments in central and eastern Europe, is one not shared by Pope Francis, a man whose interpretation of Christianity has less time for prioritising the survival of a nation in a territory, and more for welcoming the stranger regardless of other factors. The Pope’s words on Sunday could be setting him on a collision course with political leaders who see themselves as defending Christianity, rather than undermining it.
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