by Sarantis Michalopoulos
It’s common knowledge that we’re living in an era where ideological lines are often blurred. Equally clear is that far-right populists interpret religion according to their political views.
A representative example is what Pope Francis said about migration during a recent visit to Greece, in comments that expose the raison d’etre of Europe’s far-right.
Last Sunday, the Pope returned to the island of Lesbos and visited the migration camp there. He described Europe’s neglect of migrants as the “shipwreck of civilisation”.
“In Europe, there are those who persist in treating the problem as a matter that does not concern them,” the Pope said, adding that “when human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders become irrelevant”.
The Washington Post wrote that during the visit to Greece, Pope Francis focused on the need for Europe to return to its roots while avoiding the temptations of populism and nationalism. His words focused particularly on the plight of migrants and refugees, urging European leaders to welcome and integrate religious, ethnic and cultural differences.
In 2019, the Pope thanked and even proposed an atheist called Alexis Tsipras for the Nobel Peace Prize for his handling of the migration crises. He met Tsipras again last week.
“I thanked Pope Francis today for the harsh sincerity of his speech”, Tsipras said after the meeting, adding that the two had discussed the hypocrisy of EU governments on the plight of refugees and migrants.
“They talk about human rights while building fences and rejecting any legal migration route,” Tsipras added.
In Hungary, the Pope’s comments on migrants were largely ignored. “The Pope campaigns in favour of migration,” one pro-Orban channel put it.
At the same time, Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the other champions of the ‘Christian Europe’ are making efforts to bury their existential differences and join forces to combat migration and help Europe return to its Christian roots, even if migrant pushbacks and fences are about as un–Christian as it gets.
A possible solution to help confused Christian voters understand who represents what in today’s European politics is for Christian Democratic parties to tell them, as Pope Francis did, that Viktor Orban only pretends to be a Christian.
*first published in: www.euractiv.com
By: N. Peter Kramer
