Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has made a point of making provocative comments aimed at Pope Francis. What is his political intent? And does he have any support in the Church?

Matteo Salvini’s resounding victory in the European elections has left Italy’s bishops more divided than ever. In a recent interview with La Repubblica, the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), Gualtiero Bassetti, attacked the leader of the far-right League party and deputy PM’s inflammatory campaign against Pope Francis. “Dividing Catholics from the Pope is wrong and counterproductive,” he said.

Prior to the elections, Bassetti – echoing the Pope – had encouraged Italian Catholics to vote against “the winds of populism and nationalism”. Salvini’s use of religious imagery in public rallies – he is fond of emphasising his points by jabbing the air with his rosary – as well as his anti-migrant rhetoric, had disturbed several bishops. Bassetti told his interviewer: “Showing off Catholic symbols does not make you a modern-day [Alcide] De Gasperi,” referring to the devout Catholic politician who founded the Christian Democratic Party, led several Italian coalition governments after the war, and was one of the founding fathers of the European Union.

But there are factions within the CEI who are privately deeply critical of Bassetti’s approach, and seek a closer dialogue with Italy’s most powerful politician and his party. “There is a clear overlap between the priests who criticise Pope Francis and those who support Salvini,” Marinella Perroni, the prominent theologian and biblical scholar who lectures at the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, told me. “Many Italian bishops do not share the Pope’s concern for migrants; they tend to prefer Salvini’s hardline approach. The leader of the League converts their religious concerns into political actions.”