The ECR Group — which includes Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party — was meeting in Rome this week to discuss topics including the importance of “keeping Europe’s Christian flame alive” amid mass immigration.

During a private audience at the Vatican, Pope Leo echoed his predecessors in stating that “European identity can only be understood and promoted in reference to its Judeo-Christian roots”.

In the speech published by the Vatican, the pontiff noted how Christianity had shaped so much of European culture, including its “towering cathedrals, sublime art and music, and advances in science”.

But he said its ethics and intellectual thought were “likewise fundamental for responding to the challenges presented by poverty, social exclusion, economic deprivation, as well as by the ongoing climate crisis, violence and war”.

“To ensure that the voice of the Church, not least through her social doctrine, continues to be heard, is not about the restoration of a past epoch, but of guaranteeing that key resources for future cooperation and integration are not lost,” he said.

The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is one of three hard-right groups in the EU parliament and by far the most integrated in European policymaking.

With 79 members of the European Parliament, it emphasises national sovereignty, less regulation, the importance of family and more control of immigration.

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