[custom_adv] Pope Francis is viewed by many European liberals as the greatest moral voice against the resurgence in populism and the demonization of migrants. [custom_adv] But for many European nationalists, anti-migration politicians and opponents of gay rights, the real spiritual strongman of their movement is the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, their alternate pope. [custom_adv] So when Mr. Putin visited the Vatican on Thursday, it was more than a mere meeting — their third — between the two men. Rather it was a tête-à-tête between the standard bearers of competing views of Christianity on the European continent as ideological polarization between nationalists and liberals cleaves the West. [custom_adv] “I may be speaking heresy, but President Putin looks more like a pope to me, for the way he is living Christianity, compared to the one who should to all effects be the pope,” said Gianmatteo Ferrari, the secretary of Lombardy Russia, a pro-Russian and Putin-adoring association, before the meeting. [custom_adv] The president of Lombardy Russia, Gianluca Savoini, is a close ally of and unofficial Russia liaison for Matteo Salvini, Italy’s anti-migration interior minister. Mr. Putin was scheduled to meet Mr. Salvini for dinner, along with Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, leader of the populist Five Star Movement. [custom_adv] Mr. Putin’s dance card also included meetings with President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, as well as his old friend Silvio Berlusconi. But his most closely watched appointment was with the pope. [custom_adv] In typical fashion, Mr. Putin was an hour late (he also arrived 50 minutes late for their first meeting, in 2013, and more than an hour late in 2015).The men exchanged gifts, and also what the Vatican later described as ‘‘cordial’’ conversation on “questions of relevance to the life of the Catholic Church in Russia,” ecological issues, and the political situation in Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.