The Pope who defied the extreme right worldwide

Francis, whose papacy began in 2013 and ended on Monday with his death, witnessed from the highest seat in the Church the rise of nationalist and xenophobic far-right movements across the West. In the face of this defining phenomenon of our time, his stance was clear and unequivocal: firmly against it. His opposition extended not only to discrimination against immigrants, but also to the excesses of neoliberalism — prompting many conservatives to label him a Pope aligned with the left.

While he remained a critic of abortion and opposed equal recognition for heterosexual and same-sex couples — who, according to Church doctrine, cannot form a “natural family”— the Argentine pontiff also resisted pressure to turn the Holy See into a spearhead in the so-called “culture wars” against the “LGBTQ+ lobby” and “gender ideology.” This position earned him open hostility from prominent figures on the far right, and even drew criticism from leaders of the so-called moderate right.

The Pope faced more than just criticism in his native Argentina — he was subjected to outright insults. Argentine President Javier Milei, during his early days as an ultra-liberal polemicist entering political life, frequently made Francis the target of his attacks.

On his X account (then Twitter), Milei lashed out in 2017, telling the Pope to “fuck off” and calling him a “disgusting leftist” for defending the concept of “social justice,” which he vehemently rejects. “It would be good if you started distributing the Vatican’s wealth to the poor. You piece of shit,” he wrote, addressing the pontiff directly. A year later, he escalated his rhetoric, branding Francis a “leftist son of a bitch” and calling him “the representative of evil” within the Church.

In Italy, Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Lega party, has been Francis’ most prominent political adversary. In 2019, during Salvini’s tenure as Interior Minister and peak political influence, tensions boiled over. That year, a Polish cardinal close to Francis clandestinely entered the utility room of an occupied building where 400 people were living without electricity — and restored the power. The act infuriated Salvini, who saw the cardinal become a hero of the left. “We’ll send the Vatican the €300,000 bill that the building owed,” Salvini said. Soon after, he found himself on the receiving end of one of the Pope’s pointed remarks: “A politician must not sow hatred and fear.”

Later that same year, when Francis posed for a photo wearing a badge that read “Let’s open the ports,” in support of migrants, Salvini fired back: “He takes care of souls; I take care of the five million poor Italians. I open the ports only to those with permission.”

Caesar and God

Far-right leaders have often cited the biblical phrase “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” to push back against Pope Francis when his messages challenged their politics.

In France, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen cited the phrased in what was her most high-profile clash with the pontiff. She did so in 2021 after Le Nouvel Observateur reported the Pope was “concerned” about the rise of the far right.

“I am convinced that many believers would be delighted if the Pope would focus on what happens in the churches and not at the ballot box,” added Le Pen, who often cloaks her Islamophobic rhetoric in appeals to France’s Christian heritage — a cause the pontiff has never supported.

Her far-right rival Éric Zemmour went further: “But what does the Pope want? Does he want Christian Europe, the cradle of Christianity, to become an Islamic land? I would like him to explain this?” he asked in 2023.

In Spain, Francis has been in the crosshairs of Vox. In 2020, in the midst of the debate over the minimum wage, the Pope voiced his support for a universal income. Vox leader Santiago Abascal responded by stripping him of papal authority: “The opinion of citizen Bergoglio,” he said, seemed “respectable, like that of any other citizen.” “But I don’t share it,” Abascal added, stating that he doesn’t comment on “whether Communion should be given or not,” and, in the same vein, the Bishop of Rome should not meddle in political matters. “Render unto God what is God’s, and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he concluded.

Vox’s former spokesperson, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, responded in 2019 to one of the Pope’s messages against the rejection of foreigners by saying: “I think it’s great that the Pope welcomes as many illegal immigrants without papers as he wants to the Vatican.” But, he added, the Pope should not tell other sovereign states what to do.

Two years later, in 2021, he criticized “a head of state of the Vatican, of Argentine nationality,” for apologizing for the “sins” committed during the conquest of the Americas. This request for forgiveness sparked irritation beyond Vox.

Madrid premier Isabel Díaz Ayuso, from the conservative People’s Party (PP), found it “surprising” that “a Spanish-speaking Catholic” would speak that way about “a legacy that brought Spanish” and “Catholicism” to the American continent.

Former Spanish prime minister, José María Aznar, also weighed in on the controversy: “I’m not going to join the ranks of those asking for forgiveness.”

From immigration to the Amazon

The Pope’s last public remarks were made on Sunday, when he spoke out against the “contempt for immigrants.” Given he made this comment after meeting U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, many interpreted it almost unanimously as a rebuke of the Trump administration — one of many. Immigration was, after all, the issue that most frequently caused clashes between the Bishop of Rome and far-right leaders. But it wasn’t the only one.

The range of issues was wide. In 2020, he drew the ire of then-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro after posting on social media: “I dream of an Amazon region that fights for the rights of the poor, the original peoples and the least of our brothers and sisters, where their voices can be heard and their dignity advanced.”

“The Amazon is ours,” responded Bolsonaro, denying that the forest belongs, as the Pope maintains, to all of humanity.

One detail illustrates just how much of an obstacle Francis was to the far right. Steve Bannon, former strategist and ideologue of Trumpism, had already identified him as an enemy to confront during Trump’s first term. In 2017, The New York Times reported that Bannon, while serving as a Trump advisor, was forging alliances with some of the Pope’s internal critics in the Vatican, including American Cardinal Raymond Burke, in an effort to undermine the leader of the Church. Two years later, Bannon complained to NBC News about a Pope who he said is constantly “putting all faults in the world on this populist nationalist movement.”

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