Impoverished South, autonomy and migrants: Meloni now fears hostility from the Catholic world

“More than worried about the impact on our electorate, we are surprised and very much so.” A long-time deputy of Fratelli d’Italia, one of the few who has a direct line to the Melonian magic circle at Palazzo Chigi, thus reports the mood of the Prime Minister as well. “Surprise”, what transpires from the Melonians, who at the moment have the mandate not to reply and not to raise the tone. And above all not to follow the League that first with the Veneto governor Luca Zaia and then with Matteo Salvini himself responded very harshly to the vice president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Francesco Savino, who expressed all the opposition of the Italian bishops to the reform of differentiated autonomy: a law that divides the country and risks making the South even more “poor and depopulated”. An attack, that of the CEI, that comes after months of discontent against the government on social issues: from immigration, to the abolition of the citizen’s income to less attention to the weaker sections of the country.

Autonomy, Forza Italia backs out: “Impossible before Christmas”

by Emanuele Lauria

August 28, 2024

Fratelli d’Italia, a party that presents itself as an aggregator of conservatives and Catholics, is now once again in the crosshairs of representatives of the Catholic world and the Church on Autonomy. And this new clash actually worries the Prime Minister and the party leadership, also in light of an economic maneuver to be launched in the fall and that will probably worsen tensions: on social issues there is nothing on the agenda, on the contrary.

Meloni certainly did not expect the attack on Autonomy now. Before the final vote on the Calderoli law, the CEI led by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi had already publicly expressed the bishops’ opposition: “And in fact we had collected their concerns and in the relevant commissions the amendments of Fratelli d’Italia improved, and by a lot, the initial text of Calderoli – continues a Meloni faithful – and we therefore inserted the provision that the main subjects, from school to health, cannot be delegated to the Regions if the Essential Levels of Performance are not first established throughout the country. What’s more: we linked the establishment of the Lep to the real funding for the Regions that do not reach them today. It therefore seemed to us that we had reassured the Catholic world and the CEI and that we had laid the foundations for responding to the fears for the weaker groups already expressed: if the Lep are financed, it is precisely the weaker groups who will benefit the most”. Then, the Undersecretary to the Presidency Alfredo Mantovano also acted as mediator between the CEI and the government during the vote on the Caldeoli bill.

Francesco Savino (Cei): “With Autonomy it will be the Wild West. If the South sinks, we all sink”.

by Concetto Vecchio

August 27, 2024

Instead, other broadsides have arrived in recent days. From Palazzo Chigi, where the siege syndrome has been in place for some time, it is whispered that “even in the Church there are different positions and there are friends of the Democratic Party”. The problem is that the positions in favor of the reform, for example, are not emerging, and it is difficult to pass off Zuppi and Savino as expressions of the left in the Catholic world. The prime minister and her followers know well that now in the parishes of the South especially, but not only, the priests will repeat every Sunday the line of the CEI on Autonomy and poverty. But at the moment from Palazzo Chigi and from those who direct or supervise communication, such as the undersecretary Giovanbattista Fazzolari, there has been no indication to reply. In the chats of the Melonians there is no line to take. Silence, with the justification of not raising the tone.

The hope is that the controversy will end in a few days and then we will move on to something else in the newspapers. In the meantime, however, the Melonians will try to explain to the bishops that today the law “is good”: “If it were abolished by the referendum of the center-left, there would be a free-for-all and individual regions could make agreements with the government of the day asking for the application of Title V of the Constitution”, they say from Fdi. A strategy immediately put in difficulty by the main ally, Matteo Salvini’s League.

The leader of the Carroccio himself yesterday doubled down: «The Italian bishops (all of them?) are shooting at zero against Autonomy. With all due respect, I absolutely do not agree». Adding, addressing his voters: «What do you think of the bishops’ attacks?».