Tales of a militant Pope and his unholy alliances

It seems Pope Francis just can’t resist the allure of bad company. From Beijing to Tehran to Damascus, the Holy Father is collecting autocrats and hardliners like a stamp collector chasing rare specimens. If the Vatican ever opens an ‘Axis of Evil’ exhibit, they’ll have no shortage of material.

Once again, the Roman Pontifex stirred controversy while handing a PR victory to the Iranian regime. Pope Francis is quoted by Iranian news agency IRNA, through Abolhassan Navab, rector of Iran’s University of Religions and Denominations, whom the Pope met in Rome recently, as accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “ignoring international laws and human rights.” These strong words have not been denied by the Vatican so far, drawing attention to the Pope’s critical stance on Netanyahu’s actions.

But the plot thickened when Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, Syria’s de facto leader and former al-Qaeda affiliate, entered the scene. In an interview with Vatican media, Jawlani praised Pope Francis, declaring Christians an “integral part” of Syria’s history. He even went so far as to call the Pontiff a “real man of peace.” That warm, fuzzy feeling you’re experiencing is the sound of Islamist militias rebranding with the Vatican’s inadvertent blessing.

An unholy alliance is ostensibly in the making. This isn’t an isolated incident but part of a broader trend. Just as the Pope once bent over backwards to strike an agreement with China, he now appears to be extending olive branches to figures who view democracy with suspicion and religious pluralism as optional.

Take the Vatican’s approach to China as a case study. Francis began his appeasement campaign by carefully sidestepping criticisms of Chinese persecution of Catholics. In 2018, the Holy See inked a deal with Beijing, granting the Chinese Communist Party a role in appointing bishops. The Vatican retained veto power on paper, but the reality was clear – the underground Church, loyal to Rome for decades, found itself sidelined in favor of state-approved clergy. Critics, both inside and outside the Church, saw it as a dangerous concession that emboldened Beijing while weakening the Church’s moral authority.

Now, the Pope appears to be following the same script with the Middle East’s more unsavory powerbrokers. His grand strategy seems rooted in the tenets of Liberation Theology, a vision that leans heavily on engagement with the world’s dispossessed but risks indulging authoritarian forces along the way. In the quest to elevate the poor and marginalized, the Vatican increasingly finds itself making common cause with regimes that trample those very ideals.

Pope Francis may see himself as a modern-day disciple of Ignatius of Loyola, but he’d do well to remember Winston Churchill’s immortal words: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” The only question is which crocodile will get to him first.