Italy’s citizenship debate may capture a ‘Francis effect’ on national politics

ROME – In what might be seen, at least in part, as evidence of a “Francis effect” in Italian politics, a practicing Catholic and leader of a conservative party that forms part of the country’s governing center-right coalition is championing a measure to provide an expanded path to citizenship for young immigrants.

The measure, known by the Latin phrase Ius scholae, would grant citizenship to foreign-born minors after successfully completing one or two cycles of study, demonstrating a basic command of the Italian language and knowledge of Italian history and culture.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who’s the leader of the conservative Forza Italia part founded by Italy’s flamboyant former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, announced his support for the measure earlier this month at an annual summit in Rimini sponsored by Communion and Liberation, a Catholic movement launched in Italy by the late Father Luigi Giussani.

Tajani appeared at the meeting alongside Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, who also voiced support for the measure, at one point exclaiming “Viva Ius scholae!” to applause from the crowd.

At the moment, prospects for such a proposal seem limited given opposition from the other two major components of the governing coalition, including the anti-immigrant Lega party and the Brothers of Italy party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The country’s leading opposition party, the Democrats, has said it prefers a law that would grant citizenship to anyone born in the country, but is open to discussion.

Tajani has said he’ll continue discussing the idea.

“Being Italian, being European, being a patriot isn’t about seven generations, but who you are,” Tajani said in Rimini.

The reference to seven generations reflects a provision of Italy’s current law, which envisions citizenship for adults who can demonstrate they have an ancestor who born in Italy after March 17, 1861, when a unified Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed.

“I’m neither a dangerous subversive nor a left-wing extremist, but I say that you have to look at reality as it is,” he said. “I insist on formation, on identity, on culture, because if you accept being European in substance, then you’re Italian and European not because your skin is white, or yellow, or red or green, but because you have those convictions inside you, because you live those values,” he said.

“Whether you were born in Kiev, La Paz or Dakar, it’s the same thing,” he said. “I prefer those [immigrants] who have foreign parents and sing our national anthem to Italians of seven generations who don’t.”

Pope Francis is a long-time champion of expanded citizenship possibilities for immigrants.

“I encourage a determined effort to promote the social and professional inclusion of migrants and refugees, guaranteeing for all – including those seeking asylum – the possibility of employment, language instruction and active citizenship,” he wrote in his 2018 message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Integration, the pope wrote, “can be accelerated by granting citizenship free of financial or linguistic requirements, and by offering the possibility of special legalization to migrants who can claim a long period of residence in the country of arrival.”

The pontiff amplified the point in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli tutti.

“For those who arrived some time ago and are inserted into the social fabric, it’s important to apply the concept of ‘citizenship,’ based on an equality of rights and duties, under the shadow of which everyone can enjoy justice,” Francis wrote.

“It’s important to establish in our societies the concept of full citizenship, renouncing the discriminatory use of the term ‘minority,’ which carries with itself the seeds of feeling isolated and inferior,” the pope added. “It prepares the ground for hostility and discord, taking away the religious and civil rights of certain citizens in a discriminatory fashion.”

For his part, Tajani, who’s described himself as a practicing Catholic married to the same woman for 30 years and with two children, cited his faith in explaining his support for the Ius scholae measure.

“I’m Christian, and certainly the first thing they taught me is that we’re all equal before God, that the color of our skin has nothing to do with it,” he said. “There’s a European soul, and Christianity identity is part of it.”

Though the Vatican has not officially commented on the debate unleashed by Tajani’s advocacy, Paglia voiced strong support for citizenship reform at the Rimini gathering.

“I’m for the Ius soli!” he said, referring to calls for citizenship rights for anyone born in Italy. “That’s why I came today.”

Some political commentators in Italy have speculated that since Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the Lega party under populist Matteo Salvini tend to loom largest among the country’s most conservative voters, Tajani’s opening on citizenship reform may be part of a strategy to appeal to Catholic centrists who tend to feel equally alienated from both major factions.

“At the top of the Foreign Minister’s interests is, above all, the Catholic area,” wrote one analyst in La Repubblica, Italy’s most widely read daily newspaper.

“The calculation is the fruit of an analysis of the polls, the most recent of which indicate that the Ius scholae is seen favorably by public opinion, with a distinction: It doesn’t enjoy a particular consent among right-wing voters, but it’s supported by the Catholic world,” the analysis said.