"The voice of Italy’s bishops has almost disappeared from the public square"

As voters in Italy prepare to cast ballots this Sunday in general elections, almost all analysts are predicting a clear victory for the right-wing coalition. 

Italian law allows opinion polls to be published only up to 15 days before the vote, which means the last such survey came out on September 9th. It gave the following results for the main parties: 

• Brothers of Italy (right, Giorgia Meloni) – 25%
• Democratic Party (left, Enrico Letta) – 20%
• 5-Star Movement (populists, Giuseppe Conte) – 15%
• The League (center-right, Matteo Salvini) – 12% 
• Forza Italia (center-right, Silvio Berlusconi) – 8%
• Italia Viva allied with Action (center-left, Matteo Renzi and Carlo Calenda) – 7%

It is indeed a complex situation, where the novelty is undoubtedly the rise of Giorgia Meloni. A 45-year- old activist in the post-fascist right since 1992, she was appointed in 2008 as the country’s youngest-ever minister.

For the first time, she is a top leader on the political scene. And she is a woman who could win this election, a woman who elicits strong passions: dislike and hatred, but also sympathy and support.

Nevertheless, she has more support than her two most important allies. Silvio Berlusconi, soon to be 86, is suspected of being too close to Vladimir Putin. And Matteo Salvini is much less popular than he was not too long ago.

An expected abstention

In this context, where there are still many undecided voters, the difficult economic and social situation will probably lead to an increase in abstentionism, which, out of protest and mistrust, has reached almost 30% in Italy, a figure that is lower than in other European countries.

But analysts agree that the right and the center-right will obtain a much higher result than the left. The latest polls suggest the margin will be 47% to 27%.

It should be remembered, however, that the electoral system does not favor the formation of coalitions and leads to fierce competition between the extremely divided political forces within the two main camps.

It is the left that has become fragmented, and this chaotic situation has been aggravated by the uncertain positioning of Conte's populists and the center-left of Matteo Renzi and Carlo Calenda.

Divisions and shifts in alliances have accentuated Italy's traditional political instability in recent years.

Within the Democratic Party itself, Renzi caused the fall of Letta’s government in 2014 and then replaced him. 

Then there was the victory of the populists – the more left-leaning Five Star Movement and the center-right League – in 2018. They chose Giuseppe Conte, a lawyer until then unknown in politics, as the compromise prime minister. 

Aligned with Five Star, Conte first sided with Salvini's right (in the "yellow-green" government of 2018-2019) and then with Enrico Letta's left (in the "yellow-red" government of 2019-2021). 

When Italy’s president asked Mario Draghi to form a national unity government, Meloni was the only one to oppose it.

Then Conte challenged Draghi, which prompted early elections.

A barely audible Church

In the aftermath of World War II, for half a century, the Christian Democrats played a decisive role in Italy's progress, a fact that even their opponents have acknowledged.

But the widespread corruption of the parties and the politicization of the judiciary, which is predominantly left-wing, changed the scenario and led, with the 1994 elections, to the disappearance of the traditional political forces, including the Catholic party of reference.

The Catholic hierarchy quickly adapted to this situation.

Thus, with the support of John Paul II, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the bishops' conference from 1991-2007, sought to unite Catholics from the different parties around biopolitical issues, from abortion to euthanasia.

But the voice of the bishops then weakened and almost disappeared from the Italian public square.

Pope Francis told French journalist Dominique Wolton he was in favor of "parties that carry the great Christian values: these are values for the good of humanity”. 

“This, yes,” the pope said. “But a party only for Christians or for Catholics, no. That always leads to failure". 

These are values that boil down to the defense of human life at all stages and that include issues such as abortion, immigration and euthanasia.

On these topics, the pope’s voice was very clear, but in Italy these issues are addressed by political forces almost solely for propaganda. 

Instrumentalizing abortion

Above all, the instrumentalization concerns abortion, which is mainly used by the left, which accuses the right of wanting to ban it.

Meloni has replied that she would not touch the law, which has been in force in Italy since 1978, but that she intended to apply it in a way that supports women and motherhood.

This position will need to be verified, but it will garner votes from Catholic movements concerned with life and family issues, which the left has, in fact, abandoned.

Italians have become disillusioned by politics and in recent years have placed their trust in those who seemed to represent something new.

In the 2014 European elections, Renzi's democrats took more than 40% of the vote, and in the 2018 legislative elections, the populists reached almost 33%, but both quickly lost their support.

Draghi's rigorous government, which began in 2021, received high marks internationally. But the Italian political class resented it.

Now voters seem ready to change, to test the right-wing Meloni, who could be the first woman ever to preside over an Italian government.

Giovanni Maria Vian is an Italian journalist and historian who was editor-in-chief of L'Osservatore Romano from 2007-2018.