Italy's bishops, politicians at loggerheads over migrant crisis

Italy’s bishops, politicians at loggerheads over migrant crisis 20 Aug 2015 1:00 PM It has been a hot summer in Italy and tempers have started to fray, even in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church. Confronted by what they see as attempt to make electoral capital out of the Europe-wide migrant crisis, bishops are declining to turn the other cheek, engaging in a war of words with some of the country’s leading politicians. After a visit to Jordan, a country of 6.5 million people that currently accommodates two million refugees, Nunzio Galantino could not contain his anger at those who maintain that Italy cannot accommodate any more asylum seekers fleeing poverty, persecution or war in the Middle East and Africa. “Threepenny touts who will say the most extraordinarily stupid things for a handful of votes,” was the damning verdict of the Secretary General of the Italian Conference of Bishops. The salvo was aimed primarily at Matteo Salvini, the populist leader of the increasingly popular Northern League who advocates sending all the migrants washing up on Italy’s shores back to Libya, but also former clown Beppe Grillo’s populist Five Star movement, which is also demanding a “tightening of the screw” on asylum requests. The Church remains an influential voice in Italy and the issue of immigration is a sensitive one: after a record number of migrant arrivals by boat in 2014, this year has already seen 104,000 people arrive at the country’s southern ports, most of them rescued at sea by the country’s own naval and coastguard ships. Salvini did not take Galantino’s onslaught lying down, suggesting the Vatican could take in the migrants itself and implying that the Church was somehow benefiting from the crisis. “Those who defend this clandestine invasion that is destroying Italy, either don’t have a clue or they are making money from it,” he said, before ironically asking: “Italy’s a Republic isn’t it, or is it still under Vatican rule?”