In 452, an unarmed and unaccompanied Pope Leo I met Attila the Hun outside the gates of Rome and singlehandedly persuaded him not to sack the city. In 1095, Pope Urban II gave a rousing speech to the assembled nobles in Clermont, France, which launched the first of a series of Crusades to liberate the Holy Land from the bloodthirsty Turks. In 1801, Pope Pius VII successfully negotiated a concordat with Emperor Napoleon, effectively protecting religious freedoms for Catholics and Protestants alike from the oppressive zeal of the revolutionary Left.
In 2023, Pope Francis wagged his finger and decried pet owners as guilty of “selfishness.”
For better or worse, whether people like it or not, the Catholic pope is the most influential leader in Christendom. From the coronation of Charlemagne to the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and beyond, no other Christian figurehead carries as much spiritual or diplomatic weight. The papacy funded the first universities, global exploration, scientific development, and the European Renaissance. It bore the brunt of the Jacobin Terror and pulled Christianity through the dark ages of 19th-century nihilistic rationalism and 20th-century atheistic communism.
The bimillennial history of the papacy has seen its share of both good and bad popes. The Left likes to bleat about keeping religion out of politics. But those versed in religious history know the main problems occur when politics tries to intrude into religion, not vice versa. Most of Catholicism’s bad popes were those too corrupt or too weak to keep political interests from intruding onto their temporal turf. It was during times when popes were able to prevent or undo political intrusion into religion that Christianity flourished.
Enter Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis).
Shortly after becoming pope, he made waves at his first impromptu press conference. When asked about the idea of gay clergy, Francis famously replied, “Who am I to judge?” And, oh, how the press fell all over themselves. How they fawned and swooned. How they chuckled and swayed and surged forth to touch his flowing robes. Not because they agree with biblical teachings on judgment, mind you, but because they (correctly) saw in Francis their long-awaited Manchurian candidate.
Since that staged comment, Francis has made plenty of judgments.
Against whom, you tenderly ask with an inquisitive ear? Against the two Muslim “youths” who cut the throat of 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel as he was performing Mass at his church in St.-Etienne-du-Rouvray? Francis had nothing to say about them at all, other than to clarify for us the true motive for their attack, about which he stated, “It’s war… a war of interests, for money, resources. I am not speaking of a war of religions. Religions don’t want war. The others want war.” Gotcha. That video the killers made in which they pledge allegiance to ISIS, along with multiple attempts to travel to Syria to fight in its ranks, made for quite the diversions.
And the Afghan “youth” who attacked traingoers with an axe in Wurzburg while yelling “Allahu Akbar”? Or the Syrian “refugee” who blew up a music festival in Ansbach because Germans “obstruct Islam”? Or the ISIS terrorist who killed 84 people with his truck in Nice, France, in a war against “crusader states”? Were they all motivated by the evils of capitalism as well?
Per Francis, they’re not the problem. The problem is Europeans attempting to prevent millions of military-age men from the Islamic world from arriving. Those who attempt to deter such illegal arrivals, says Francis, are exhibiting “gestures of hate against brothers,” made possible by the “fanaticism of indifference.” Hate and indifference. That’s how Pope “WhoAmIToJudge” judges anyone who disagrees with him on immigration policy.
Ah, but immigration is his pet issue, you say. He’s allowed to get a little rambunctious about it, which would explain why he told a crowd of teenagers in Verona to “make noise” about immigration issues. Don’t pray, don’t sacrifice your time volunteering, don’t offer your lodgings or other resources, and certainly don’t lead by example. Make noise. Be good little activists.
But wait, Francis has more judgment to deal with because he has another pet issue. In November, Francis will travel to Dubai to discuss… Israel’s right to self-defense? Support for religious minorities in the Muslim world? Support for women’s rights? Nope. The world’s most influential voice for the abandoned and oppressed will be discussing (drumroll) climate change!!! We have “ecological sins” to repent for, you see. And by “we,” he means only Westerners, specifically Americans. Neither the Chinese Communist government nor any other tin pot dictatorship needed to lie awake at night fearing Francis’s vigilant gaze. It will fall upon our unrepentant shoulders to bear his wrath for the sin of making Greta Thunberg’s life miserable.
On other issues, Francis is blatantly contradictory. He has long referred to weapons manufacturers as “merchants of death.” He chides European nations for not giving enough of these same weapons to Ukraine, decisions he blames bizarrely on the arms industry. He rants against American burning of fossil fuels but can’t unequivocally condemn Hamas terrorists who burn alive entire families.
But who or what can fill the void? The Anglican Church? The current Archbishop of Canterbury is totally on board with “affirming” the wrong gender for kindergarteners. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury said that sharia law in England will be “unavoidable,” so the backwoods Tory clingers might as well get with the program. The Orthodox Church? Its biggest denomination, the Russian branch, is Putin’s puppet. One of the myriad American denominations, the Presbyterians and whatnot? The PCUSA is too busy adorning their apses with pride flags and BLM banners to notice their pews emptied a long time ago.
Christendom is not in a good place right now. The Vicar of Peter is currently George Soros in a miter, and most other Christian leaders follow the latest Quinnipiac poll rather than the Bible. Lately, the only Christian official who seems to be doing any actual fighting in defense of the faith is a French nun who chased down and tackled some pansy environmental activist whom she caught destroying building materials intended for a chapel.
The real question is what the Catholic Church will do once Francis retires or dies. Was Francis an unintended mistake, a Bud Light moment for the church? Or will it continue down this woke path? A course correction would obviously be the ideal scenario not just for the Catholic Church but for all of Christendom. Until that happens, Christians the world over are on their own. For those Christians living among Francis’s “brothers” in Sudan and Pakistan, it’s a death sentence, with each passing day simply a matter of borrowed time. For those Christians living in China, the totalitarian sewer where Francis never met a government official whose boots he didn’t eagerly lick clean, public professions of faith get you permanent vacation in the gulag.
Just this month, Italian police reinforced security at the Vatican, complete with bulletproof vests and machine guns, in response to an Islamic terror attack in Brussels. Keep in mind the two cities are 915 miles apart. That’s like an American president upping security for this entourage in Chicago because there was a shooting in Dallas.
But being woke affords you these double standards. The octogenarian priests getting their throats cut aren’t privy to machine-gun wielding guards, just as the Hollywood jet set isn’t expected to “go green” by flying commercial where they might make eye contact with the hoi polloi, and just as the Martha’s Vineyard folks aren’t forced to fill their hotels, airports, and police station lobbies with illegals the way the rest of us are.
Pope Francis is a base political animal of the abominable liberation theology strain. Let’s hope the College of Cardinals runs better background checks at the next papal election.
HAPPENING NOW AT NYC'S GRAND CENTRAL STATION: THOUSANDS OF JEWS AND ALLIES HOLD AN EMERGENCY SIT-IN, DEMANDING A CEASEFIRE IN GAZA. WE'RE TAKING OVER THE GRAND CONCOURSE. WE'RE REFUSING TO ALLOW A GENOCIDE BE CARRIED OUT IN OUR NAMES. CEASEFIRE NOW! NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE! 