(ANALYSIS) The packed ballroom inside Rome’s luxury Hotel Parco dei Principi buzzed with anticipation. Inside, supporters of Italy’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party cheered in the early morning hours of Monday as Giorgia Meloni, a big smile across her face, made her way to the podium.

Despite it being 2:30 a.m., there was plenty of energy in the room. Meloni, after a summer of campaigning where she crisscrossed the Italian peninsula, emerged to declare victory as Brothers of Italy swept the national elections. She is now poised to become the country’s first female prime minister after taking a majority of seats in Parliament.

The victory at the polls follows a trend now evident across Europe. Ultra-nationalistic and anti-immigrant parties, much to the chagrin of the Vatican, are coming to power across the continent. Italy now joins Hungary, Poland and Sweden, with right-wing governments seeing a major surge in popularity.  

“The fact that Brothers of Italy is the first party in Italy means many things,” Meloni told the crowd. “For many of us, this is certainly a night of pride, a night of redemption, tears, hugs, dreams and memories. It is a victory that I want to dedicate to all the people who are no longer with us and who deserved to see this night. When this night is over, we must remember that this is not a point of arrival, but of departure. This is the time of responsibility and an historic moment where you have to understand the responsibility you have towards tens of millions of people.”

Meloni, who ran under the banner, “God, homeland and family,” ended her speech by quoting St. Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

It was typical Meloni, who isn’t shy about combining nationalist fervor with Christian symbolism. While Meloni and her supporters celebrated, Pope Francis, just five miles away at the Vatican, had come off a long day himself.  

The pontiff had traveled to the southern Italian city of Matera, where he held an open-air Mass. Italy’s bishops had urged Italians to cast ballots. To close out the Mass, Francis, who was born in Argentina but is of Italian heritage, said, “I’d like to ask Italy: More births, more children.”

Italy, which has one of the Europe’s lowest birth rates, faces what Francis called a “demographic winter.” As a result, the country has had to import foreign workers, oftentimes resulting in waves of undocumented immigrants making their way to Italy’s shores.

“Immigrants are to be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated,” the pope added.

The pope did not endorse any one candidate or mention any of them by name at the Mass. He has, in recent months, used surrogates such as Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, who heads the Italian bishops conference. In a three-page document issued days before the vote, the bishops reminded voters of the need to care for the marginalized. Francis has been no fan of populist political parties and is certainly on a collision course with Italy’s new right-wing coalition, which includes the anti-immigrant League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia.

The Holy See still exerts a lot of influence in Italy. In a country that is still overwhelmingly Catholic, the results of Sunday’s election will put politicians at odds with this pope on many issues — although immigration will be the biggest one. Once you put aside “culture war” issues and differences over whether Italy should be in the European Union (the pope favors it; the right in Italy generally does not), Meloni and the pope agree on one thorny matter: Ukraine.

Italy’s center-left parties have shown full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. Pope Francis has not been so quick to do the same, just like Italy’s right. Francis and the populists, as John Allen recently noted at Crux, “generally see Putin as a bulwark against social liberalism” but are open to dialogue with him.

During a recent news conference, Francis said that he supports Ukraine’s right to defend itself but added that the West should be open to dialogue with Putin.

“In the U.S., for instance, Francis has been criticized by Catholic conservatives for not supporting bishops who want to deny communion to Biden and other pro-choice Democrats,” Allen noted. “Yet Francis seems to be lining up with his enemies rather than his allies when it comes to Russia.”

It should not be lost on anyone that many Catholic voters who elected Meloni are anti-Francis, seeing in him someone who favors progressive reforms at the expense of traditional values.

“I’m a believer and I listen to the words of His Holiness,” Meloni said in 2020, “but on a political level I don’t always share them.”

At the same time, it remains to be seen what Meloni’s winning coalition can do to help Italy with many of its post-pandemic problems. When it comes to its relationship with the Vatican, a meeting between Meloni and Francis could go a long way. The Catholic Herald, however, said in an editorial: “The stage is surely set for an uneasy relationship between the new government in Rome and the Holy See.”

It remains to be seen whether that meeting ever takes place — with Meloni so close to the pope in terms of geography, yet far when it comes to ideology.

Clemente Lisi is a senior editor at Religion Unplugged and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. His new book “The FIFA World Cup: A History of the Planet's Biggest Sporting Event” comes out Oct. 12. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.