The Pope's words on migrants would have given the green light to the CEI to break the neutrality it has maintained until now with respect to the government
Giuseppe Conte went on a private visit from Pope Francis.
The photo shows them smiling, yet it is a shot that does not at all represent the state of relations between the Catholic world and the government.

A Catholic party will not be born, as some cardinals still hope. The time of the DC is now over. Yet if at first, after the birth of the yellow-green government, bishops and parish priests had been invited to maintain a certain equidistance in the political spectrum, now the levee seems to have broken. “We can still remain silent?”, some representatives of the CEI would have said to Bergoglio. In the end, according to what he writes Republic, Pope Francis' latest public interventions on the topic of immigration would have sounded like “a sort of clearance for the Italian bishops and the president of the CEI Bassetti” to abandon neutrality towards the government.

And in fact the Episcopal Conference it has repeatedly expressed itself on positions that are completely contrary to those of the two government parties. Just scroll a little’ news. Going in chronological order, at the time of “Diciotti case” (September 2018) it was right there Church to come to Salvini's rescue by welcoming the migrants stuck on board the Navy ship. Since that day, but, relations deteriorated further. First the escape of the immigrants and “Papa's Fortress”, then the constant reminders not to close the ports. Finally the clash over Ires (the so-called goodness tax).
In November Bassetti criticized the economic measure (“if the calculations are wrong there is no reserve bank that will save us“) and in December it has the increase in IRES has been defined a “provocation of those who do not have enough memory for Italian society”. Finally during the meeting “Our Europe” organized by various associations (including Acli, Catholic Action, Community of Sant'Egidio, Cisl, Confcooperative, Fuci and Sturzo Institute) it also arrived the alarm for “the wind xenophobic” which would blow on the EU.
The relationships between government e the they were not (quasi) never so tense. Dialogue with the League is practically at an end, with the Northern League convinced of playing the belly of the Catholics and the clergy committed to guiding the people of God away from the Northern League sirens. Even with the M5S things are no better. The Minister of the Interior did not show up at the Vatican Gendarmerie party and his absence was noted.
It's not a coincidence, points out Republic, if in recent days the director of Catholic Civilization, Antonio Spadaro, talked about “chaos” come “strategy for political success”. And it is no coincidence that Bassetti has criticized politics on migrants “unloads the social discontent of Italians”.
The last tear, however, came with the case Sea Watch e Sea Eye. I 49 migrants stuck for days off the coast of Malta seem to have definitively broken the weak thread of the CEI-government dialogue. So much so that even Pope Francis took part in the Angelus his heartfelt appeal ai “leader” Europeans to show “solidarity”.
source – http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/nulla-osta-papa-cei-chiesa-si-schiera-contro-governo-1629602.html?mobile_detect=false