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Old August 11th, 2018 #100
Stewart Meadows
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Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 37,518
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Quote:
Italy’s Catholics flock to the right

Pope Francis has a problem: Italian Catholics.

In the home of the Vatican, believers are increasingly attracted by the hard-line stance of Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Francis and Salvini espouse radically different approaches to migration. Where the pope has called on countries to take care of the less fortunate, Salvini has turned his close-the-borders approach to immigration into an electoral warhorse.

The trouble for Francis is that Salvini seems to be winning — even among Catholic voters.

Since his ascendancy to the throne of St. Peter in 2013, the Argentine pope has advocated a welcoming approach toward migrants, in line with the Church’s tradition. He has washed the feet of jailed asylum seekers and visited Lampedusa — a small Sicilian island off the coast of Libya where many of Europe’s migrants arrive — to condemn the “global indifference” to the plight of those lost at sea.
(…)
Recently, however, it’s become clear that not all of his flock is following. “At this moment, there’s a clear difference between an important part of Catholic opinion and the opinion of the Church hierarchy,” said Luca Comodo, a director at polling firm Ipsos.
(…)
Salvini’s posture has triggered accusations of racism — but it has also rewarded him with a meteoric rise in the polls. Since March, support for his party has soared from 17 percent to roughly 30 percent. Only the League’s partner in Italy’s ruling coalition, the anti-establishment 5Star Movement, enjoys similar ratings.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ital...atteo-salvini/








Which of these two leaders would you prefer?