Avvenire, the daily newspaper of
Italian Bishops Conference CEI, took aim at the Northern League
on migrants Thursday, continuing a clash between the Italian
Church and the right-wing party led by Matteo Salvini.
On Wednesday Salvini said CEI Secretary-General Monsignor
Nunzio Galantino was being a "pain the neck" by intervening in
this issue.
In an interview, Galantino had criticised politicians who
fuelled anti-migrant sentiments, calling them "cheap peddlers
willing to say extraordinarily inane things just to get a vote".
He added that comments by League politicians such as
Salvini and Governor Luca Zaia of Veneto amount to a sort of
"tavern talk, boasting" that could be turned into violence
against newcomers.
Galantino also criticised the government's response to the
Mediterranean migrant crisis as being "completely absent".
Salvini responded by accusing the Church of overstepping
the mark.
"Is Italy still a republic or dependent on the Vatican?" he
wrote on Facebook.
"Immigration without limits and without rules is just
chaos".
Avvenire joined the debate on Thursday with an editorial by
Editor Marco Tarquinio.
"There are those who blabber and insult for awful reasons
of little politics and those who take action," Tarquinio wrote.
"Those who don't do anything serious try to poison the
hearts of the Italians by odiously and outrageously attacking
those who do the right thing".
Salvini has also criticised Pope Francis for making appeals
for governments not to reject refugees.
When the pope said last week that rejecting refugees was an
act of war, the League leader replied: "No, it's a duty. Am I
wrong?".
Salvini also hit out at the pope in June, when Francis
asked the faithful to pray for forgiveness for those who "close
the door" to refugees.
"How many refugees are there in the Vatican?" Salvini told
his party's Radio Padania.
"The problem is that the refugees are a quarter of those
who arrive (while the rest are economic migrants). We don't need
to be forgiven".
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