As a Radical Left regime in Nicaragua is persecuting the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has been as tardy and soft in his response as was to be expected. Various bishops have spoken out against the increasingly violent repression yet the man who would like us to think he is Pope has only recently come out with the mildest of statements. This isn’t new however.
Francis has taken an infamously horrendous attitude towards China and of course towards Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. Francis has spoken of how NATO provoked/threatened Russia yet has said little about Russia’s previous aggressive actions and ambitions against its neighbors including Georgia all the way back in 2008 or Yevgeny Alexeyevich Fyodorov’s recent call to rescind the recognition of Lithuania’s independence.
Nor has Francis commented on or even acknowledged the fears expressed by the governments of democratic Eastern European countries such as Poland, Latvia and so on.
He has added insult to injury by not making the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church a cardinal.
Nicaragua
Therefore, Francis barely responding to the persecution of Catholics in Nicaragua isn’t anything new. Now his supporters have tried to defend this as being pragmatic and diplomatic and certainly a subtle or underplayed response is sometimes necessary.
Pope Pius XII took such a stance towards the Nazis while acting behind the scenes to save countless lives. Though long after the war (Communist) propaganda tried to smear him and charlatans like John Cornwell tried to link this to his supposed anti-Communism (even though Communist and Nazis were de facto allies for the first 2 years of the war).
Ironic though considering Pope Pius XII took a similar stance towards Soviet Communion in the lead up to the Cold War, (just like the other Western leaders).
But the thing is, Pope Pius XII did use diplomacy and clandestine networks to save people from the Holocaust. He did not make mere public gestures. Just as important, Pope Pius XII was involved in several plots by the army to kill Hitler.
Francis is doing no such thing for his flock in Nicaragua just as he refused to do with Venezuela.
Francis’ Eastern disaster
He went even further by selling out the Church in China. He has been soft on most dictators, being only willing to criticize Trump.
This makes it rather hilarious that he spoke of bishops needing to be pastors, not politicians, in the matter of communion for politicians who reject Catholic teachings regarding abortion.
Bishops appointed by the Chinese government seems more like politicians than pastors.
Being apolitical or anti-political is not the same as being anti-Conservative. John Paul II and Benedict XVI weren’t neocons. They had no problem speaking out against the Iraq War or taking a more centrist stance on economics.
Francis however has been significantly more friendly towards Biden. Apparently, Biden’s support for abortion is just his political stance separate from his personal views opposed to it, yet Trump somehow couldn’t be personally opposed to illegal immigration while respecting secular law.
Yet while seeming biased in favor of the Democrats, Francis has split with them over both Russia and China. That is the one area where they seem to truly disagree. The Democrats have spoken out much more strongly against these regimes than Francis is willing to.
Imagine how silly it would have been had Pope Pius XII continued to remain silent or soft on the Soviet Union, even allowed Mao to appoint bishops, yet had made snide remarks against Truman because of his opposition to illegal immigration or the practice of the death penalty in the USA.
Criminal inaction
Yet Francis is still to visit Ukraine even as his trip to Kazakhstan is being finalized. He’ll even visit the Patriarch of Moscow, Putin’s loyal ally there. He hasn’t visited Poland either. He has in fact been very critical off the Polish bishops (probably because they are to loyal to his glorious anti-Communist predecessor John Paul II). One criticism was actually that the bishops were supposedly to close to the Law and Justice government (didn’t they know those guys aren’t communists?).
But the Law and Justice government turned out to be right in its warnings about Russia and the Polish Church has done more for the Ukrainians than the Pope.
It is a fitting end to Francis’ ‘papacy’. He alienated orthodox Catholics by not being Catholic and fanatically supporting the Democrats, then alienated the Democrats by remaining friendly with Putin, all while his role in corruption scandals involving the Vatican bank become increasingly impossible to deny. Oh… and the child abuse cover ups.
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