In 2019, a politician little known outside Italy named Lorenzo Fontana brought a polarizing event to Verona, a city with a history of ultra-Catholicism and right-wing politics. Called the World Congress of Families, after the U.S.-based coalition that organizes the event, it is one of the world’s largest and most influential anti-gay, anti-abortion conventions, powered by influential backers, including Russian oligarchs, Catholic bishops, Opus Dei leaders, ultra-nationalist academics and media personalities. 

The conference was a political lightning rod. As it began, protestors swept through the streets of Verona while conference attendees gave interviews outside the event hall. “Homosexuals must be treated, otherwise hell is waiting for them,” one woman told journalists outside the conference. 

Also at the conference, Giorgia Meloni, who was elected last month to be the new prime minister of Italy, gave a rousing speech to a standing ovation, railing against surrogacy for gay couples. “A puppy rightly cannot be ripped from the mother’s womb as soon as it’s born. So two rich men should not be able to buy a son from a desperate mother,” she told the enraptured crowd. 

Meloni’s election victory also swept in Fontana, 42, who was elected speaker of the lower house of Italy’s Parliament — the third most powerful position in Italian politics. But despite their history of overlapping values and a shared conference podium, the appointment came as a shock to people who have been watching Meloni’s rise to the pinnacle of government.