Right-Wing Populist Parties as Agents of Religionization or Secularization? An Analysis of the Italian Case

Abstract

Since the 1990s, but especially in the early 21st century, a new family of right-wing populist parties has become a stable feature of Western European party systems. These parties, linked by several studies to new cleavages related to globalization processes and values changes which have happened since the late 20th century, are also marked by a new use of religion. In their worldview, this latter is indeed mainly an identity and civilization marker, related to the belonging, rather than believing or behaving, dimension. As a consequence, while they promote Christian symbols in the public sphere and are actively engaged in debates related to morality politics and multicultural society, they also contribute to processes of banalization and culturalization of faith, and to the delegitimization of religious leaders and institutions. For this reason, the scholarly community is divided about their role as promoters of religion, or, rather, as (maybe unintentional) agents of secularization. This article will try to contribute to this discussion by analyzing the Italian case. Italy is indeed an interesting laboratory for the study of right-wing populism, with the development over the past few decades of two state-wide parties belonging to the right-wing populist family, the League and Brothers of Italy, both currently part of the Meloni cabinet. The article will analyze the historical roots of the parties and their developments, their manifestos, their policy proposals, and their relations with religious institutions and symbols to reflect on the two parties’ uses of religion for political aims, and their meaning in relation to the above-mentioned theoretical debates.

1. Introduction

The right-wing populist party (RWPP) family, developed since the 1980s, has become a major contender in nearly all European party systems in the 21st century. Therefore, since the 2010s, a wide comparative literature on the phenomenon has developed, also focusing on the role played by religion in this new political phenomenon. According to most contributions on the subject (Haynes 2020; Brubaker 2017; Ozzano 2019; Ben-Porat et al. 2023; Arato and Cohen 2017; Marzouki et al. 2016), RWPPs are marked by a peculiar use of the sacred, which is significantly different from the “traditional” use of the sacred made by 20th century parties, and focused on religion as a pillar of a local/national/Western identity, in opposition to other identities, namely (frequently) Muslim and migrant communities (Betz 2001; Haynes 2020). As explained more in detail in Section 2 of this article, this use of religion suggested a view of RWPPs as agents of religionization of society, in the context of a wider phenomenon of “deprivatization of religion” or “revenge of god”, which started in the 1980s (Kepel 1991; Casanova 1994). However, some recent works (Cremer 2023; Ozzano 2020b) have cast a shadow on this conviction by highlighting that—at least in some cases—these parties only apparently promote religion, while in reality, banalizing it and contributing to the delegitimization of religious authorities and institutions; and, therefore, contributing—maybe not deliberately—to promote secularization processes.

This article will test these different points of view on the relations between RWPPs, religion and secularization by analyzing the case of Italy. The country is indeed not only a very interesting case for the study of the relations between religion and politics but also a kind of “laboratory” of populism, which has already seen the rise of RWPPs and populist leaders between the 1980s and the 1990s (Ignazi 1992; Betz 1994); and, today, it shows two big RWPPs, Brothers of Italy, which won the 2022 elections and is currently leading the government, and the League. The article will analyze these two parties and their conceptions of the role of religion through a mixed methodology by scrutinizing their historical roots, the political stances and the views of religion put forward in their electoral manifestos, their policies and policy proposals during the current parliamentary term, and their attitudes toward religious institutions and symbols. A comparative section will finally highlight the similarities and differences between the two cases, and the concluding remarks will try to understand what the latter means for the literature on RWPPs, religion and secularization.

This article adopts an ideational definition of populism as “a thin-centered ideology that considers society as ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’“ (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017, p. 6), but integrates it with the acknowledgement of the “exclusionary” or “horizontal” dimension of the populist phenomenon (opposed to the “vertical”, anti-elites one), implying “a nativist understanding of the people as an ethno-cultural closed group, separating them [the people] from foreigners and outsiders” (Ben-Porat et al. 2023, p. 157). Therefore, we adopt Albertazzi and McDonnell’s definition of right-wing populism as “an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice” (Albertazzi and Mcdonnell 2007, p. 3).

As for secularization, we adopt here Bryan Wilson’s (Bryan R. Wilson 1966, p. XIV) definition of the phenomenon as “the process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions lose their social significance.” Among the dimensions of the process which are relevant for the present study, we can mention: a separation and autonomization of the political and religious spheres; a decreased relevance of religious leaders as a normative authority in terms of values; and a loss of relevance of religion in the people’s private sphere, with an increasing predominance of non-religious lifestyles (Dobbelaere 2016; Taylor 2007; Casanova 1994; Ammerman 2007). While the idea that secularization processes are a necessary and irreversible part of modernization was widely accepted in the Western social sciences until almost the end of the 20th century, in the recent decades, it has been increasingly questioned by a number of contributions about the so-called “deprivatization of religion” (Casanova 1994) or “revenge of god” (Kepel 1991) which have happened since the 1980s. As a consequence, a number of contributions started to question the global nature of secularization (Berger et al. 2008), as well as its homogeneous nature across the different dimensions mentioned above: for example, with the idea of religion losing relevance at the institutional level, but still being an active force in society, in terms of “invisible religion” (Luckmann 1967); or concepts like “believing without belonging” (Davie 1994).

2. Research Question and Methodology

This article aims at disentangling the complex relations between RWPPs, religion and secularization from a political science point of view: that is, it does not focus on the analysis of secularization processes active within society at large, but only on the political discourses of political leaders and parties. The main aim of the article is understanding if, and to what degree, the two Italian RWPPs actually encourage the religionization of society, or, rather, might be—deliberately or inadvertently—promoting secularization processes; and whether they display the same attitude, or, rather, if there are detectable differences between them. This analysis will be carried out in the conclusions of the article by disentangling the three main dimensions of secularization mentioned in Section 1, that is

(a)

Do the two parties and their leaders actually support a separation, or rather an entanglement between the political and the religious realms?

(b)

Do the leaders of the two parties promote a “religious” or “pious” lifestyle or a secularized one?

(c)

Do the two parties and their leaders respect the authority of “official” religious leaders and institutions, or, rather, undermine them?

The article is based on a mixed methodology: the historical section is largely based on second-hand sources and existing studies on the Italian right; however, the parts on the 21st century and Section 8 of the article are instead based on a discourse analysis carried out on a database of about 5000 newspaper articles gathered for the previous research of the author (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016; Ozzano 2016, 2020a). Section 6 is instead based on a content analysis, with particular attention to the frequency of words1 related to religion, morality and identity carried out on the electoral manifestos for the 2022 parliamentary elections produced by the center–right coalition, and by the League and Brothers of Italy, which are available online. Section 7, finally, is the result of research carried out on the online databases of the two Italian chambers through the use of the same keywords used for Section 6.

3. Right-Wing Populism and Religion

Since they became a relevant phenomenon in the political systems of most European countries, RWPPs were put under scrutiny for their peculiar relation with the sacred because of their frequent use of religious symbols for political purposes (Marchetti et al. 2022; Ozzano 2019), their adoption of conservative platforms on religion-related fields such as multiculturalism and morality politics (Donà 2025; Norocel and Giorgi 2022; Ben-Porat et al. 2023), their policies targeting some religious minorities, particularly Muslims (Betz 2017; Brubaker 2017), and their relations with religious institutions (Ozzano and Bolzonar 2020; Cremer 2021). Although proposing partly different points of view on the phenomenon, most contributions agree that the populist use of religion is quite different from the “traditional” usage by 20th century Christian democratic and conservative European parties. In the populist discourse, indeed, religion does not significantly matter in relation to the believing or behaving dimensions, but mostly in terms of belonging, with an identity-driven and civilizational perspective (Brubaker 2017; Haynes 2020). If we look at the two relevant axes which structure the RWPPs’ positions, the vertical one (determining an inclusionary dimension, focused on the idea of a pure people opposed to corrupt elites), and the horizontal one (determining an exclusionary dimension, focused on the idea of a homogeneous people opposed to other communities/identities, portrayed as incompatible), we see that the religious element is relevant mostly in relation to the latter (Ben-Porat et al. 2023; Betz 2001). In this context, religion performs, first of all, the role of an identity marker, as an essential tenet of a local/national/European/Western civilizational identity (the geographical and cultural scope can change according to the specific cases and the issues, with a narrower focus when local and national traditions are at stake, and a broader perspective in relation to more general issues, such as Muslim immigration), both to create a sense of cohesion within it, and to mark the boundaries separating it from other identities (Ozzano 2020b; Betz 2001; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2013; Filc 2015). In this framework, religion becomes culturalized and is no longer necessarily associated with an elaborated and coherent theology and with the authority of “formal” religious institutions and leaders, whose points of view can be disattended and even criticized when they are at odds with the right-wing populist creed, especially on issues such as immigration, religious pluralism and multicultural society. In the meantime, populist leaders can achieve a charismatic status, and therefore, pose as quasi-religious leaders, at times in competition with “official” ones. Although religious leaders are often quite popular among the conservative voters RWPPs cater to, this clash can prove harmless, or even beneficial in electoral terms, if right-wing populist leaders are able to convince their supporters that religious leaders are part of the “corrupted elites” and far from the “true will” of the people (DeHanas 2024; Zúquete 2018; Ozzano 2019).

This latter point is also made possible by the fact that the religious element provides RWPPs with a “moral claim” to put them on a higher moral ground in comparison to allegedly inefficient and corrupt elites, and “to trigger the self-righteous indignation necessary to construct, define and mobilize the authentic ‘good’ people against the alien other” and “to motivate, justify, and render its thin ideology thick” (Arato and Cohen 2017, p. 291). Consequently, studies on political parties which focused on their relations with social cleavages have also found out that this religious identity of RWPPs is mainly not related to the “traditional” state/church cleavage focused on the struggle between the secularizing efforts of nation-building elites and the resistance of religious people willing to maintain the role of religious values and institutions in society (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Rose and Urwin 1969; Knutsen 2004). On the contrary, the RWPPs’ take on religion seems to be related to new cleavages developed in Western societies since the second half of the 20th century, as a consequence of the strains created by globalization processes and the values changes that started between the 1960s and the 1970s (Ignazi 2003; Kriesi et al. 2005; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Kitschelt and McGann 1997), with an opposition between “libertarian-universalistic” and “traditionalist-communitarian” worldviews (Bornschier 2010, p. 423).

This new attitude of RWPPs towards religion and the sacred becomes particularly relevant if we consider that this new party family develops in a peculiar historical moment, marked by a return of religion in the public sphere and the political context, or, at least, by processes of deprivatization and republicization of it (Kepel 1991; Casanova 1994), also leading to a critical rethinking of the secularization perspective that had hegemonized social sciences for almost two centuries (Swatos and Christiano 1999; Luckmann 1967; Dobbelaere 2016; Erin K. Wilson 2014). In this context, the literature on religion and RWPPs is mostly oriented toward acknowledging their religious nature, either as a political manifestation of religion, or as a phenomenon of instrumentalization or “hijacking” of religion (Marzouki et al. 2016; Giorgi 2022; Zúquete 2018; Minkenberg 2018).

Some contributions, with a focus mainly on Western Europe, are, however, more nuanced in their analysis of the relations between RWPPs, religion, and secularization, by highlighting that, to begin with, the RWPPs’ civilizational and identity-driven use of religion, especially in Northern and Western Europe, often becomes an “identitarian Christianism” which is “devoid of any religious content” (Brubaker 2017, p. 1210), in the context of the broader processes of culturalization and banalization of religion in the contemporary world (Griera et al. 2021; Hjarvard 2011). Other works also highlight the different approaches to religion adopted by RWPPs in different regions of the world, for example, explaining that “in Western Europe, Christianity and religion merge with nationhood and secularism, although the relationship varies from country to country” (Haynes 2020, p. 8), while in Central and Eastern Europe, RWPPs tend to have a less secularized approach, and in the US, “Christianism” is more frequently associated with racist feelings. According to some contributions, in the same country, we can find RWPPs with different orientations on family- and gender-related issues, as a consequence of the different role played by the religious factor in the party’s worldview and ideology (Ben-Porat et al. 2023). Some research even suggests that the very same party can selectively adopt different narratives in relation to faith, according to the different issues at stake, by highlighting Christian identity in the morality politics field, and European secular identity when Islamic immigration is at stake (Brubaker 2017; Ozzano 2019). Contributions on both theoretical issues and specific cases, for example, Turkey or the US, also warned of the danger of populist leaders portraying themselves, at least implicitly, as charismatic and quasi-religious leaders marked by messianic attitudes (DeHanas 2024; Marzouki 2022), with the consequence of their hegemonizing of the religious field, or, in some cases, of a competition between political and religious leaders to define the “true” essence and values of their religion.

While the previously mentioned research already casts an ambiguous light on the relation between RWPPs and religion, in the 2020s, a new batch of contribution adopts an even bolder approach on the issue by questioning the idea that RWPPs can actually be considered as religious actors or, at least, by wondering whether they really are promoting religion, considering that “although defending ‘religious’ symbols and values, they do not necessarily adopt a pious lifestyle, and they even do not hesitate to harshly criticize religious institutions that do not align with their positions”. As a consequence, “these parties and political entrepreneurs do not necessarily oppose secularization processes” and maybe they can even be considered as “(unaware?) agents of secularization” (Ozzano 2020b, p. 213), an idea also put forward by Tobias Cremer with his concept of a “godless crusade” carried out in Western Europe by RWPPs which are “much more secular in nature” than “the old faith-driven religious right” and might, therefore, be “not just a symptom but also a harbinger of secularization” (Cremer 2023, pp. 6–7)

4. The Italian Context

Italy has always been marked by a peculiar relation between religion and politics: first of all, because of the presence in Rome of the Vatican, which, until the mid-19th century, not only had a significant influence on several pre-unity Italian states but also directly ruled most of central Italy. Moreover, after the unification, religion became, in several ways, a bone of contention, as well as a tool of mobilization, in Italian politics; a situation which, in turn, paved the way for the political use of religion from different political sides. Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, this was a consequence of the armed conquest of Rome, and some new secular laws, which created a rift between the Italian state and the Vatican: the latter, as a consequence, forbade Catholics to take part in Italian politics for decades and promoted a wide program of civil society religious activism (Verucci 1999; Kalyvas 1996). The rise of power of Fascism in 1922 was also marked by a peculiar political use of religion; at first, because of the strong anti-clerical orientation of the early Fascist movement; and later, because of Mussolini’s instrumental embrace of conservatism and religious traditionalism in order to fortify his regime (as shown in the following section, this contradictory attitude towards Catholicism was the origin of a split within the Italian right in relation to religion) (Scoppola 1971).

With the end of War World II, and democratization, the new Italian political system was largely structured around the religious cleavage (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Bellucci and Heath 2012) with the confrontation between the officially atheist Communist Party and the Christian Democracy. The latter, supported by the Catholic Church, but largely autonomous from the Vatican, was moreover marked by a lively internal pluralism, with factions ranging from right-wing to Socialist ideological orientations, which prompted scholars to define the party as a “microcosm” of Italian society (Lyon 1967; Galli 1993). In the early 1990s, the Christian Democracy party disappeared as a consequence of harsh corruption scandals; this situation ushered in a diaspora of Catholic legislators (and the Catholic vote) which almost evenly split between the center–right and the center–left coalitions. This gave rise to a very anomalous situation of the Italian political system, where, unlike many other European states, religion was not mainly confined to the conservative field, but was adopted as a tool of mobilization by several parties and political entrepreneurs with very different ideological orientations (Diamanti and Ceccarini 2007; Ignazi 2018; Baccetti 2007). The political use of religion was also favored by the simultaneous rise, especially in the center–right, of several political projects with a populist attitude: first, the Northern League (later, just “League”: see the following section about its complex and contradictory relation with religion) and later, tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who, in the 2000s, after starting his political career from a relatively secular conservative platform, enthusiastically embraced, with his coalition, a religious agenda focused on a security-oriented, and sometimes civilizational, view of Islam and a conservative take on morality politics issues (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016).

It was, however, in the 2010s, in a political phase marked by the economic and migration crises, that Italy saw the success of several political projects marked by a populist outlook and using religious discourses in different ways (Caiani and Carvalho 2021): the Five Star Movement, which was marked by a more inclusionary attitude, and, in the right-wing field, the League and Brothers of Italy, whose history and development are the subject of the next section.

5. History and Development of the Parties

Although they adopt quite similar political platforms today, the two Italian RWPPs, Brothers of Italy and the League, come from quite different backgrounds and historical roots.

The League party is rootedin a number of regionalist parties and movements which were created in northern Italy since the early 1980s, demanding an autonomous status for the northern Italian regions, and opposing Rome’s bureaucracy and immigration from southern Italy. In 1989, these movements coalesced to form the Northern League, which, for a couple of decades (until Matteo Salvini, become leader of the party in 2013, dropped the “north” adjective and turned it into a national and nationalist party), advocated autonomy, and in some phases, independence for northern Italy (Biorcio 2010). At the time, the political identity of the movement was quite uncertain and not as openly right-wing as it became in the 2000s. In terms of religious orientation, while some degree of Catholic conservatism already came to the fore in the 1990s in the Northern League’s stances, the party leaders seemed to perceive the Vatican as part of the Roman and Italian tradition and bureaucracy that they wanted to reject. As a consequence, they indulged in neo-Pagan rituals involving the adoration of the river Po and established relationships with ultra-conservative Christian movements which rejected the Pope’s authority (Guolo 2011; Bertezzolo 2011; McDonnell 2016).

It was in the 2000s, when the Northern League became, for many years, part of the center–right governments led by Berlusconi, that the party more openly steered towards the right and adopted an identity-driven version of Catholic conservatism as a central plank of its platform. In the meantime, foreign immigrants (and especially Muslims) became the central target of the party’s activity, with its leaders standing out for their politically incorrect statements towards the Muslim community. Conservative Christian ideas also inspired the party’s stances on issues such as religious symbols (with draft bills aiming at making the crucifix compulsory in public classrooms, and banning Muslim veils from schools and public spaces), and morality politics (with a staunch opposition, also at times explicitly grounded on religious arguments, to any project of legalization of same-sex partnerships, and support for very restrictive legislation on several bioethics issues, from ART to abortion) (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016). Quite interestingly, the League’s leaders did not even refrain from criticizing the Catholic church, the Pope, and their local representatives whenever they expressed sympathetic feeling towards the migrant communities and support for multicultural initiatives. Indeed, although they adopted similar positions on morality issues, the relation between the party and the Church was often tense (Guolo 2011). It was, however, with Matteo Salvini’s leadership, started in 2013, that the religious stance of the League (now a national party) became more open, and at times, very controversial. This is the case, particularly, of the late 2010s, when Salvini (at the time Minister of the Interior) adopted (as explained more in detail in Section 7 of this article) a very religiously connotated language and even openly exhibited Christian symbols in Parliament.

This strategy, and other controversial issues related to Salvini’s role in the Conte government (for example his good relationship with Putin, for whom he frequently expressed his admiration), marked an electoral decline of the League towards single-digit polls, which in turn contributed to the above-mentioned growth of Brothers of Italy. After the 2022 elections, the League became a junior partner in the new Meloni government, still standing out for its more conflict-oriented tones on identity and morality issues, in comparison to other coalition partners.

Unlike the League, Brothers of Italy is the result of a complex process of evolution from post-fascist roots. The party is indeed the heir of the Italian Social Movement, a political party created in 1946 to provide a home to the nostalgics of Fascism.2 As shown by the history and political science literature on the party (Ignazi 1989, 2018; Ruzza and Fella 2009; Tarchi 1997; Chiarini 1995), however, there was disagreement among its members about the exact interpretation of what the Fascist heritage actually entailed. Some factions, focusing on the experience of the Fascist regime, adopted a right-wing, nationalist and conservative (often with religious underpinnings) platform; on the other hand, there were others who were inspired by the so-called “Fascist movement”, that is, the early stages of Mussolini’s endeavors, when the revolutionary, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical planks of the leader’s Socialist upbringing were more influential. This engendered a duality in the identity of the party, which, at the times when the latter faction achieved the upper hand, adopted socially oriented (at least in relation to workers’ rights) and pro-third world positions: a platform which was particularly popular among the youth section of the party, which in the 1970s, developed its own version of the counterculture (Tarchi 2010). Although this ambiguity was true to a degree, also in relation to religion, the party always officially adopted a conservative Catholic worldview, with the demand that Catholicism became Italy’s state religion (Chiarini 1989).

A certain degree of ambivalence can also be found in National Alliance, the result of the MSI’s process of mainstreamization and moderation in the early 1990s, also where the current PM Giorgia Meloni started her political career as the leader of the youth branch. Indeed, the positions of the party leader, Gianfranco Fini, were quite ambivalent: while at times he adopted right-wing, civilizational and identity-driven stances very similar to the Northern League’s ones (for example, during the discussion about the inclusion of a reference to the “Christian roots” of Europe in the preamble of the draft EU constitution), in other cases, he stood out for a more secular right, even with some multiculturalist stances; for example, when he proposed the introduction of the teaching of Islam as an optional discipline in the public schools curriculum, the concession of voting rights to immigrants in local elections, and when he partly supported the 2005 referendums for the abolition of the controversial Law 40/2004 regarding several bioethics issues (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016).

A turning point for the Italian right came in 2009, with the merger of National Alliance with Berlusconi’s Go Italy that proved an unsuccessful marriage. While many former National Alliance politicians, including Fini, soon left the new People of Freedom party, Meloni initially decided to stay. Only in 2012, with Berlusconi discredited by scandals, did she and some other right-wing politicians leave the party to create Brothers of Italy (Ignazi 2018). The party immediately stood out for its radical views both on morality politics and religious pluralism issues. For example, Meloni took part in “anti-islamization” rallies, and supported conservative Catholic movements engaged in battles on morality politics issues such as abortion. Although the party initially fared quite poorly in the polls, in the late 2010s, with controversies regarding Salvini and the League, it started to grow to double-digit polls, and in September 2022, it managed to win the parliamentary elections at the helm of a state-wide center–right coalition (Newell 2024; Donà 2022). In this context, quite an ambiguous attitude of Meloni and her party came to the fore. Although still in the 2022 campaign, she stood out for outspoken statements (see, for example, her speech at the convention of the Spanish right-wing party VOX); after winning the elections, she seemed to adopt a different stance in several terms: by mostly avoiding controversial statements and adopting a more “institutional” tone, also on social media; by adopting a staunch pro-US and pro-NATO position in foreign policy; and by mostly dodging controversial issues (Griffini 2023; Bressanelli and de Candia 2025; Fasola and Lucarelli 2024).

6. Electoral Manifestos

The center–right manifesto3 for the latest Italian parliamentary elections, in 2022, is quite a short document (only 17 pages with 15 thematic sections), which summarizes the stances of the whole coalition and does not stand out for daring proposals or inflammatory rhetoric. The clearest statement in identity terms is the closing point of Section 1, focused on the international role of Italy, which affirms that the coalition stands out for “defence and promotion of Europe’s classical and Judaeo-Christian roots and cultural/historical identities” (p. 2).4 This is the only time that Christianity is mentioned in the document, while Islam is also mentioned only once, to declare the coalition’s commitment to “fight any type of antisemitism and Islamic fundamentalism” (p. 7). Other very loose references to a religious worldview are the coalition’s “support to natality” (p. 6) and the adoption of vouchers for private (which in Italy, often means Christian) schools. The rest of the document, even when dealing with themes such as immigration and the family, although sometimes putting forward controversial proposals (such as the jailing abroad of immigrants who commit crimes), is not openly connotated in religious or identity terms.

If we move to the analysis of the two parties’ specific manifestos, we see more detailed and outspoken religion- and identity-related stances. Quite interestingly, however, the 202-pages-long League’s manifesto5 specifically addresses Christianity only once (in terms of “protection of Christian roots and religious freedom”, p. 74), while the Church and the Pope are never mentioned (the quotation of a phrase by John Paul II, however, introduces the document’s section on the family, p. 69). However, there are eight references to “religion”. For example, the party stands for “freedom of expression, opinion and religion”, while opposing “initiatives such as the Zan draft bill” (p. 75): this is a reference to a law proposal aiming at punishing hate crimes against the LGBT+ community, which had been discussed in the early 2020s by the Italian parliament. Quite clearly, here, we find a frame often used by the Italian right in the public discussion, which considers the punishment of opinions against the LGBT+ community as an infringement of religious and expression freedoms (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016): as shown below, in other sections, the League’s manifesto even explicitly mentions the so-called “gender theory” as an enemy to fight. The document also mentions religion in terms of Christianity when it expresses support for “religious tourism and the 2025 Jubilaeum” (p. 188), when it deals with the third-sector associations (p. 177), and when it establishes, among the principles to be respected by Italy’s international trade partners, respect for “ethnic and religious minorities” (p. 194). All other references to religion are related to Islam, which is specifically mentioned six times in the document, all in the context of a detailed paragraph about “integration of foreign communities”. The common concern of the latter is mainly Islamic fundamentalism, seen as a threat to Italy and Europe: the document highlights the danger it poses for the radicalization of young, second-generation immigrants, as a “harbinger of jihadism” (p. 113), and for the schooling of young Muslim women “who are maintained in a condition of domestic confinement, from a young age, according to the models of fundamentalism, which instrumentalizes religion to legitimize the condition of submission and the violations of human rights that women, as such, must endure, including the duty of wearing the veil” (p. 113); this is a traditional battle horse of the party, which, in the 2000s, had unsuccessfully tried to promote legislation against the veil (Ozzano 2016). In this context, the document also prioritizes the teaching of Italian, and other European languages, rather than Arabic, which is “usually used as a tool for proselytism and indoctrination by radical organizations which oppose a real integration of Muslim immigrants” (p. 112). Finally, the document mentions the word “identity” and related adjectives 21 times to refer to the Italian cultural heritage, which “mirrors our identity, also face-to-face foreign people” (p. 34); and to frame the family in terms of tradition (with “a mother and a father, and not parents 1 and 2”, p. 70), with a promotion of natality, and an opposition to “the deconstruction of sexual identity and the dangerous materials that circulate on the web” (p. 70), according to the idea that “the family, as an essential pillar of our culture, our roots and our identity, cannot be subjugated by ideological impositions aiming at redrawing the concept of family unit” (p. 70). The document also re-states the above-mentioned opposition to laws against LGBT+-related hate crimes in terms of freedom of religion and expression, and, in the same paragraph (p. 70), stigmatizes lifestyles which include the possibility of euthanasia or assisted suicide (with an explicit opposition against “medically-assisted voluntary death”, p. 74), and surrogacy, which is framed as an exploitation and commercialization of women and children. The document does not include, instead, specific references to abortion, with the exception of a statement supporting “defence of the ‘culture of life’” (p. 72) in the context of maternity-related measures. Women, as well as the youth, according to the document, must also be protected against “the prevarications of the gender theory”, defined as “an attempt at ideological colonization” (p. 75).

Brothers of Italy’s manifesto6 is not only shorter that the League’s one only 40 pages but is also significantly less connotated in religion and identity terms. Christianity is mentioned twice: to support “the defence of the classical and Judaeo-Christian roots of Europe and their fundamental values of freedom, democracy, solidarity, subsidiarity, and justice” (p. 37) and “the valorization of the 2025 Jubilaeum, and Rome as the capital of Christianity” (p. 22). Islam is mentioned only once, in terms of opposition against “any type of antisemitism, racism and Islamic fundamentalism” (p. 32): even the section on immigration, although stating the party’s opposition against illegal migrants, does not include specific religion-related themes. “Religion”, “Church”, and “Pope” are never mentioned in the document. “Identity” is instead mentioned twice, only one of which is relevant to this study, when the document states Brothers of Italy’s opposition against “cancel culture and iconoclasm which threaten the symbols of our identity” (p. 22). However, it must be highlighted that “Support for natality and the family” ranks as the first section of the document and is introduced (just as it was done in the League’s document, where the sections were in alphabetical order) by a quotation of John Paul II. In this section, however, the only statement relevant to this research is a mention of the law on abortion, with the commitment to “full application of the law 194 of 1978 on the voluntary termination of pregnancy, starting from prevention”, which implies the availability of funds for single women in order to allow them “to carry on their pregnancy” (p. 5): this is a traditional theme of Italian center–right parties, which often maintain that the legislation on abortion is allegedly applied selectively, neglecting the parts about prevention (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016). In terms of gender issues, the document looks more liberal than the League’s, by opposing “any discrimination based on people’s sexual and sentimental choices” and committing to “maintain the law on civil unions” for same-sex couples. However, the same paragraph points out the party’s opposition against adoption for these couples, as well as against surrogacy (p. 21). Finally, “Gender” is never mentioned in terms of “gender theory”.

7. Legislation and Draft Bills

If we look at the legislation, it is very evident that the only major morality-related battle undertaken by the Meloni government is the fight against surrogacy. Indeed, the field of bioethics, especially in relation to sexuality and procreation, has often been a significant bone of contention in Italian politics. As a consequence of a law approved in 2004 by another center–right government,7 for example, the access to ART is the subject of severe restrictions, and it is entirely forbidden to same-sex couples and singles. Surrogacy (which is usually referred to in the public Italian debate as “utero in affitto”, that is “uterus for rent”) is also forbidden by the same law.

However, since the 2010s (especially with the discussion of the law legalizing same-sex unions, approved in 2016), the issue of surrogacy has often come to the fore in relation to same-sex couples accessing surrogacy services in countries where this practice is allowed (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016; Ozzano 2020a). In the following years, mostly marked by state-wide bi-partisan government coalitions unsuitable for identity-driven battles, the issue had remained unsolved. Therefore, it is not surprising that after the center–right victory in the September 2022 elections, the theme of surrogacy immediately came to the fore. Already on October 13, Maurizio Gasparri (a former Italian Social Movement and National Alliance MP who, today, is a member of Go Italy) had submitted a draft bill8 proposing to punish the use of surrogacy practices by Italian citizens, also in case that this takes place abroad. Thirteen days later, a Brothers of Italy Senator, Isabella Rauti (the daughter of a former Italian Social Movement Secretary) also submitted a very similar text.9 On 19 January 2023, it was the turn of a group of League MPs to submit another draft bill proposing punishment with a jail sentence between four and ten years, and up to a 2 million euros fine for the people who “in any form, commission, carries out, organizes or publicizes maternity surrogacy”.10 Finally, on 15 February, Brothers of Italy decided to submit its own “official” draft bill, signed by Carolina Varchi and 31 other legislators belonging to the same party.11 This bill is simply an extension of the already existing legislation on surrogacy to procedures performed abroad. As a consequence, it implies both prison sentences and fines softer than those included in the League’s proposal (3 months’ to 2 years’ jail sentences and 600,000-1 million euros fines). The bill, an official act of the Brothers of Italy party (as also shown by its publicization on Brothers of Italy’s own website)12 that was explicitly supported by the government, was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on 26 July 2023, and by the Senate on 16 October 2024, thus becoming a law.

Beside this law, there is no other significant legislation on morality politics issues currently under scrutiny in Parliament, which might signal that, at least in the present stage, the two Italian RWPPs, despite their sometimes inflamed rhetoric, are not interested in significantly altering the current legislation on primary issues such as same-sex partnerships and abortion; although other draft bills were proposed (for example, a bill on abortion proposed in November 2022 by Senator Maurizio Gasparri),13 the government does not seem to be interested in pursuing their approval.

If we look at another major battlefield of the populist right, the relations with Islam and the multicultural society, in its first months of activity, the new Italian government stood out for the lack of significant new law proposals. However, also considering the continuing inflow of immigrants, especially through the Tunisia and Libya sea routes, the issue was frequently part of the political debate: in some cases with a particularly heated discussion, such as after a declaration released in April 2023 by the Minister of Agriculture (and Meloni’s brother-in-law) Francesco Lollobrigida, who highlighted the need for a welfare program to help Italian couples to have children so as to “not to give up to ethnic replacement”.14 In this context, a major battlefield is the regulations on the construction of mosques, which has already been the subject of controversial regional laws approved by three northern Italian regions led by the League (Giorgi 2018); indeed, the League has always been the main Italian crusader against the alleged “Islamization of Europe”, although Brothers of Italy was substantially aligned on the same positions. In June 2023, a new controversial piece of legislation was put forward by Tommaso Foti, an MP belonging to Brothers of Italy. The draft bill, focused on the issue of places of worship, amended a 2017 Law Decree on the third sector15 by specifying that “associations of social promotion that perform, even occasionally, worship activities of religions without an agreement [intesa] with the state” were excluded from the possibility to have their headquarters in buildings originally built for industrial or commercial use.16 The apparently neutral formula “religions without an agreement with the state” is indeed a way to refer to Islam in a constitutionally appropriate way, considering that Islam is the only major religious tradition that is still without an agreement with the Italian state (Giorgi 2018). This formulation has become quite common in recent years whenever right-wing parties elaborate draft bills that are related to Islam. The reference to the latter is indeed made very clear by the proponent of the law, who in his introduction to the text, explains that the 2017 law decree had been used as a “picklock” by the Islamic communities to set themselves up in Italy “by creating mosques and madrassas, with the complete indifference of the institutions, in defiance of the law and with a complete impossibility to act for security forces”.

To sum up, the new bill (approved on 7 May 2024 by the Chamber of Deputies and under scrutiny at the Senate at the time of writing this article) would prevent any Islamic association performing religious services from having its headquarters in commercial or industrial buildings in urban and suburban areas. To understand the problems that such a law would engender for the Italian Islamic communities, it is necessary to add that in Italy, it is common that mosques are created in those areas. This is particularly true especially in the three northern regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Liguria, who in turn, as mentioned above, in the 2010s, have approved regional laws making it particularly difficult to create mosques in city centers (Giorgi 2018; Ozzano 2019). The combination of the two legislations, as a consequence, would make it very difficult for Italian Muslims, especially in some northern areas, to have official places of worship.

8. Leaders’ Attitudes Towards Religion

This is probably the field where we can find the most significant differences between the two main partners of the government coalition. Indeed, while the League and Brothers of Italy (as shown above) share many conservative Catholic stances about morality politics, and about the alleged danger posed by Islam, their attitudes towards the Catholic religious institutions, including the attitudes of their leaders, have at times been quite different. This was true, particularly in relation to Pope Francis, who was regarded very negatively by some conservative Catholic Italians, both because of his welcoming attitude towards migrants and the Islamic communities, and because of his openness towards the LGBT+ community (Ozzano 2020a). The League was particularly outspoken in its opposition against these stances, even putting into question the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s election itself. This was clearly shown by Salvini, who, during a League’s rally in 2016, openly sported a t-shirt with the face of a shocked Pope Francis and the words “Benedict is my Pope”17 (for a broader analysis of the League’s voters’ attitude on this issue, see: Giorgi 2022). This behavior was aligned with a tradition of criticism towards the catholic hierarchy that had marked the party since the 1990s, when the Northern League’s leaders indulged in neo-pagan rituals and never refrained from criticizing the church on the issues of immigration and multiculturalism (Guolo 2011). Among several very harsh statements of the party’s leaders against the Catholic Church, Salvini himself stands out with his accusation towards the Milan archbishop Dionigi Tettamanzi in the early 2010s, of being friendlier towards Muslims that towards the Italian dwellers of Milan’s peripheries (Ozzano and Giorgi 2016, p. 119).

On the contrary, although sharing with Salvini most stances on religion and multiculturalism, Meloni and her party have always mostly refrained from openly criticizing the Church’s representatives, who are usually mentioned with a degree of respect. This is clearly shown by the fact that, while Salvini has never met Pope Francis, Meloni did it several times. Moreover, she frequently underlined her warm relation with the Pontiff, whom she mentioned as a source of inspiration and counsel, and whom she fondly commemorated in Parliament in April 2025, after his death, as “an absolute protagonist of our age”, with whom she enjoyed a “sincere personal relation”.18

Another difference between the two leaders’ behaviors towards religion can be found in their attitudes towards religious symbols. On one hand, Salvini, especially in some political phases (for example, while serving as Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior during the Conte government between 2019 and 2021), was well-known for his exhibition of religious symbols (Marchetti et al. 2022), such as the crucifix and the Gospel, at political rallies and in Parliament, and for the use of religiously connotated language in “devotional” terms. A famous example of this behavior was a political rally held in Milan in May 2019, where Salvini said he “entrusted Italy to the heart of Virgin Mary”.19 This behavior, which according to some, was the consequence of a deep relation of the League with ultra-conservative Christian movements such as the Neocathecumenals (Prearo 2024), and seemed to show the intention of the League’s leader to adopt the image of a quasi-religious leader, in competition and opposition to Pope Francis and the Church’s hierarchy.

On the contrary, Meloni, although officially supporting (as the League also does) the presence of Christian symbols in the public sphere (often linking this issue to anti-Islamic stances), has never openly sported ostensible religious symbols such as the crucifix. Moreover, although often adopting religiously connotated language in identity terms (“I am a Christian” is a phrase frequently recurring in her speeches), she usually sticks to this dimension, without lingering in the “devotional” tones and references that have marked some phases of Salvini’s rhetoric.

Finally, in terms of the promotion of a religious, rather than a secular, lifestyle, although both leaders are nominally outspoken Christians, they do not display their religious practice in public, and they have mostly been filmed during religious services only when attending official events or ceremonies as public officers or party leaders. Moreover, both do not make a mystery of the fact that their personal life does not correspond to the “traditional” model promoted by their parties. Indeed, they are both unmarried (Salvini is divorced), and they both had children out of wedlock and were engaged in public relationships with TV personalities. 20

9. Comparison

As shown in the previous section, the two Italian RWPPs are mostly aligned on a nationalist and conservative platform and refer to Christian values to justify both conservative morality politics stances and the fight against “Islamic fundamentalism” (which, however, often means a broader anti-Islamic attitude). This is also shown by the main religion-related legislation supported by the League and Brothers of Italy, which is largely the same. The reference to Christianity takes, in both cases, a culturalized appearance, which is usually related to identity concerns and does not involve the adoption of Christian patterns and lifestyles in everyday life.

Nevertheless, the analysis also highlighted a number of interesting differences between the two cases, which are directly related to the three dimensions of secularization highlighted in Section 2 of this article.

First, in terms of political stances, the 2022 manifestos of the two parties reveal different degrees of emphasis on religion and identity. Indeed, Brothers of Italy’s manifesto includes fewer, and more general references to religion and identity, while the League’s document heavily emphasizes the Christian identity of the party, both in morality politics and anti-Islamic perspectives. Moreover, in relation to both of these fields, specific differences also emerge in terms of stances. In the morality politics field, the analysis revealed the presence, in the League’s document, of specific references to the so-called “gender theory” as an “ideological imposition” and source of “deconstruction of sexuality”, hence the opposition against a law punishing LGBT+-related hate crimes; moreover, the party explicitly stated its opposition against any type of euthanasia and medically assisted suicide. On the contrary, Brothers of Italy’s manifesto avoids references to end-of-life issues, and not only does not explicitly mention the “gender theory” but also commits to fight discriminations based on sexual preferences and to maintain the law legalizing same-sex unions. In the field of the rights of religious minorities, although the two parties make similar references to the fight against “religious fundamentalism” (which in the jargon of European RWPPs often means a struggle against an alleged “Islamization of Europe”), Brothers of Italy’s document does not include more specific details. On the contrary, the League is more detailed in explaining how this latter is relevant in fields such as women’s rights, the youth, and criminality, and also highlights the party’s negative view of the Muslim dress code and the use of the Arabic language.

The field where the most significant differences emerge, however, is probably the two parties’, and the two leaders’ attitudes towards religious authorities and symbols (which, of course, is particularly related to the dimension of the maintenance of the authority of religious leaders in a secularized society): a difference which might partly be linked to their different historical roots, with the League traditionally marked by attitudes and stances inspired by anti-clerical and neo-Pagan positions and a use of religion that is generally quite independent from the Catholic Church’s teachings. As shown above, in the case of Salvini, we find a frequent use of religious symbols, such as the rosary and the Gospel, in political rallies and even in Parliament, and the adoption of heavily religiously connotated language, not only in terms of identity, but also in “devotional” terms, for example, with references to Virgin Mary. Paradoxically, however, this does not combine with a positive attitude of the party towards Catholic institutions and leaders: on the contrary, Salvini (in line with his party’s tradition) did not refrain from openly criticizing the Church’s representatives and their positions, and even put into question Pope Francis’s legitimacy. If we look instead at Meloni and Brothers of Italy, we do not see any significant use of religious symbols and language, except in identity and cultural perspectives. Moreover, the Italian Prime Minister—although not sharing some positions of Pope Francis on morality politics and religious pluralism—has never openly engaged in criticism and frequently emphasized her good relation with the Pontiff in warm and fond tones.

The following section will conclude the article by showing what these features of the two Italian RWPPs and their similarities and differences might mean for the literature on populism, religion and secularization.

10. Concluding Remarks

As shown in Section 2 of this article, the 21st-century literature on RWPPs and religion often highlighted their pro-religious attitude. However, some contributions showed the culturalized, identity-driven and often civilization-centered nature of such religious references, which might imply processes of “culturalization” and “banalization” of religion. Moreover, it was highlighted that the often charismatic and sometimes quasi-religious attitude of many populist leaders can create clashes with religious institutions. Finally, we have shown that some recent contributions are even more radical in questioning the real pro-religious attitude of RWPPs, by suggesting that, at least in some contexts, the latter might actually engender and promote secularization. This led to the formalization of the research questions of this article in relation to the RWPPs’ attitude towards religion and secularization processes by separately analyzing three dimensions of secularization: the separation between the religious and the political realms; the maintenance of the authority of religious leaders and institutions; and the affirmation of “religious”, rather than “secular”, lifestyles.

To cast light on this point, this article considered two cases of Italian RWPPs, the League and Brothers of Italy, through a multi-layered analysis (focused on the historical roots and developments of the two parties, their manifestos, their policies, and their attitude towards religious institutions and symbols) to test the alternative theoretical points of view.

The results of the analysis show that both parties and their leaders share frequent references to Christianity as a primary source of their identity, as well as a justification for several stances and policy choices, both in the morality politics and religious pluralism fields. This might apparently confirm the thesis on the pro-religious attitude of RWPPs, tempered by a culturalization of religion. However, a closer analysis of their actual attitudes towards religion, in relation to the three dimensions outlined in Section 2, reveals a more complex and ambiguous picture.

Indeed, it is true that both parties officially support a “traditional” idea of family and gender roles. However, their leaders’ lifestyles seem to speak an utterly different language, with the adoption of personal choices which are surely not “traditional” in Christian terms. In addition, as mentioned above, their use of religious symbols for political battles might also contribute to the trivialization, culturalization and banalization of religion. Finally, at least in the present stage, they don’t seem to be oriented towards significant changes in the legislation on sensitive issues such as abortion and LGBT+ rights. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in terms of the promotion of a secular, rather than religious, lifestyle, their action is mainly not oriented towards a religionization of society.

Moving to the dimension of the separation between the political and the religious realm, the situation is more unclear and controversial. On the one hand, the use of religious, rather than secular, arguments, for political discussion and propaganda does not contribute to the development of a secularized public sphere; moreover, we have witnessed a religionization of many debates that might have been framed in entirely secular terms, such as, for example, those on gender issues and assisted procreation. However, we see that the parties do not seem to conceive this situation in terms of expansion of the domain and influence of religious institutions. On the contrary, especially in the case of the League, we see a frequent undermining of the latter’s authority, and in the case of Pope Francis, even his legitimacy as the Pope.

This leads us to the third dimension, which is exactly related to the maintenance or loss of influence of religious institutions and leaders. In this case, we see an interesting difference between the two parties at large, and especially a clear difference in the behaviors of their leaders. Brothers of Italy and its leader clearly show a positive attitude towards the Catholic Church, with a lack of significant criticisms and an emphasis on their good relations with the Church’s leaders. The League’s representatives, including Salvini, have instead frequently engaged in criticisms and even open attacks against the Catholic institution and leaders, which include questioning their legitimacy. This attitude combines with Salvini’s posing as a quasi-religious leader, which clearly emerges from his use of religious symbols and his “devotional” rhetoric, in the context of antagonism toward the Catholic Church and, particularly, Pope Francis.

To sum up, the results of this research suggest that the two Italian RWPPs might represent two partly different models in relation to religion and secularization. On the one hand, Brothers of Italy seems to correspond to the “traditional” image of RWPP conveyed by the mainstream literature, with a pro-religious attitude tempered by culturalization processes which might, in the long run, mildly contribute to a banalization of religion and a partial secularization of lifestyles and cultural models. On the other hand, the League, with its lively criticism towards religious institutions and its appropriation of religious symbols and language, might represent a more aggressive model of party, which relates to religion in contradictory ways, some of which apparently promote religion and its symbols even within political institutions, and some others which actively contribute to crucial dimensions of secularization, such as the loss of relevance of religious institutions and leaders. Given these complex results, which partly contradict the “traditional” literature on right-wing populism and religion, further research, also on other national cases, is surely needed, in order to provide a more thorough and nuanced image of the role played by RWPPs in secularization processes.