Russia: L14's First Misstep

Last week I wondered what it would mean to have an American pope, especially given the prominence of America support for Prevost. That support appears to have included substantial financial as well as organizational support—the financial support reported to have come directly from Trump. Now, it’s true that Trump’s reported $14 million donation to the Vatican came before Prevost’s election, but it cannot have passed unnoticed that Trump’s favorite cardinal—Dolan, from New York—was a key backer of Prevost. Thus, I speculated, tongue in cheek, that we might see a Trump Tower in Vatican City.

Unfortunately, we may already be learning what it means to have an American pope. The FT is reporting

New pope breaks with Francis to support Kyiv and ceasefire push

Pope Leo XIV calls Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy days after his election as head of Catholic Church

The tone of the article and the limited statements by L14 clearly suggest that L14 is taking sides against Russia—as also does the fact of the phone call to Zelensky within days of L14’s election:

Pope Leo XIV has called Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and a western-backed 30-day ceasefire, in a shift from the previous pontiff who had struck a more neutral stance on Moscow’s war.

Ukraine’s president said on Monday that his first conversation with the new pope, who was elected last week, was “very warm and truly substantive” and thanked him for his support.

…

Pope Leo on Sunday said: “I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” urging for “an authentic, just and lasting peace as soon as possible”.

“May all the prisoners be freed and may the children return to their families,” he added.

His explicit support for Ukraine in its years-long war against Russia’s invasion was met with appreciation from Ukrainians and especially the country’s Catholics.

After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the late Pope Francis avoided directly accusing Moscow of aggression, suggesting that NATO had provoked Russia and often treating the warring parties as suffering equally. …

…

… Leo in 2022 — who was a bishop in Peru at the time — condemned Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as “imperialist”, saying that “Russia wants to conquer a territory for reasons of power” and that it committed crimes against humanity in the conflict.

By making explicit support for Ukraine and the NATO presentation of the conflict L14 a sort of keynote of his papacy, L14 will certainly enrage the large Russian Orthodox church. He will also enrage many other European Orthodox who are sympathetic to Russia, especially in the Balkan Orthodox countries. From an ecclesial standpoint, that is sure to set back ecumenical relations. One wonders whether L14 is simply ignorant of this dynamic, given that his perspective largely reflects his North and South American life experience. The way in which Ukrainian Catholics welcomed L14’s intervention will only further enrage Orthodox, as the very existence of the uniate Greek Catholic church in Western Ukraine (the largest such uniate church) has been a sore point with the Orthodox for centuries. Worse, the Greek Catholic region in Western Ukraine is the bedrock of Ukro-Nazi/Banderist support. This is not a good look for any Catholic. And, be it noted, other Central European Catholics are not necessarily sympathetic to the Banderite Ukrainian Catholics—I’m thinking here of Slovakia, Hungary, and Croatia.

Just as bad, this peremptory intervention at such an early stage of his papacy will be perceived by many as payback to Trump. US Catholics, many of whom supported Trump, may see nothing amiss in supporting Ukrainian Catholics, who have a substantial presence in several major metro areas of America, but that simply reflects general American ignorance of the complex histories in other parts of the world. Prevost’s statement (quoted above) while still a bishop in Peru—attributing Russia’s SMO to simple “imperialism” and lust for “power”—reflect that type of ignorance, whether Prevost was personally ignorant or not. In any event, a perception of the first American pope being beholden to American geopolitical power hegemoniacal maneuvering is a very bad look to the rest of the world—including large numbers of Catholics outside the US.

Even worse, L14’s explicit support for a dictatorial Ukro-Nazi regime that espouses the worst moral tendencies of the globalist West calls into question his Catholic sensibilities. Trump, of course, has courted the Catholic vote assiduously and that vote has been key to his electoral victories. Sadly, the Catholic demographic in Ukraine has provided the bedrock of support for persecution of Russian Ukrainians in explicitly Banderite/Nazi forms. It’s not my purpose to rehearse the complicated history of inter-Slavic rivalries, disputes, and wars. I’m simply saying that L14 should have been smart enough to stay clear of all that. That he either wasn’t smart enough—and never bothered to educate himself—or succombed to American pressure doesn’t speak well of him.

Further, L14’s explicit support for the Ukro-Nazi Kiev regime aligns him not only with the Anglo-Zionist forces but also with the explicitly anti-Christian regimes of the West. Any pope should be smart enough to steer clear of that alignment. At a minimum, he has alignment with the most demonic forces of the West has canceled his ability to serve credibly in the capacity of a mediator—and he has done so as perhaps the first substantive step in his papacy.