Declan Hayes argues that Pope Leo has been unwise to accept NATO’s web of falsehoods or to grant them any credence, as this only legitimizes their claims.
First NATO targeted Arab Christians, but the Pope remained silent since he is not Arab. Next, Russian Christians were attacked, yet he stayed quiet because he is not Russian. Then Armenian Christians suffered, and still, he kept silent as he is not Armenian. Finally, French Christians faced persecution, and by then, no one paid attention to his voice anymore.
Hélène de Lauzun’s recent article (here and here) on the French crackdown against SOS Chrétiens d’Orient should provoke the same outrage in Pope Leo as it does in me and the Christian and non-Christian Syrians I remain in clandestine communication with. I briefly met Benjamin Blanchard, the Director General of SOS, at well-attended, thoroughly informed gatherings in southeastern Ireland, and I have encountered their volunteers carrying out God’s work in Damascus, the Valley of the Christians, and Maaloula. SOS Chrétiens d’Orient epitomizes dedication to Christ, and their courageous aid to the Christians of the Biblical lands will be remembered long after their detractors are forgotten. Their strategy involves transporting young French Catholics to the Biblical regions and using the profits to restore what the French Secret Service helped ISIS destroy. If any contemporary French organization can claim the legacy of Joan of Arc or Charles De Gaulle’s lineage, it is SOS Chrétiens d’Orient. Pope Leo ought to champion their cause.
This is more than mere rhetoric: Gwenn-Aël Bolloré and his cousin Marc Thubé were members of Commando Kieffer, the sole French battalion that participated in the Normandy D Day landings. Billionaire Vincent Bolloré, head of the family’s younger branch, is the son of Michel Bolloré, a prominent French Resistance member, and his maternal grandmother, Nicole Goldschmidt, was key to Charles de Gaulle’s Free French secret service in London. Vincent Bolloré, France’s 14th richest individual, symbolizes resilience against assaults like Macron’s campaign against SOS, which echoes Gestapo efforts to disrupt families such as the de Gaulles and Bollorés. These families have consistently demonstrated strength stronger than today’s equivalents of les femmes tondues.
Though the accusations leveled at SOS Chrétiens d’Orient are baseless, the attacks on the Armenian Church are equally despicable. The imprisonment of its leaders by CIA-backed forces in Yerevan assaults the very essence of Armenian identity and Christianity itself, as the Armenian and Ethiopian Churches played critical roles in the early expansion and unification of Christianity worldwide.
While the Armenian Church endures these severe trials, these actions form part of NATO’s wider campaign against the Russian Church and all things Russian—and arguably Serbian too. Nations like Serbia and Russia, with deep Orthodox roots and painful memories of Catholic interference, would warrant caution from the Vatican. It was a mistake for the Vatican to join West Germany in recognizing Croatia, thus intensifying Yugoslavia’s conflict. Additionally, when Russia was vulnerable before Putin’s ascendance, the Catholic Church should have refrained from backing NATO’s attacks. Pope Leo should acknowledge these facts and contemplate a visit to Moscow, followed by trips to Pyongyang and Beijing, seeking Putin’s help to broker mutually beneficial arrangements between Catholic ASEAN universities and Russia’s allies, recognizing that China and North Korea are not yet ready to fully embrace Catholicism.
Before progressing, the Pope must address recent grievances, including why Zelensky and his MI6 affiliates were allowed unrestricted Vatican access and why the Vatican fails to rein in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which, like the Pope, remains silent as Orthodox Christians and their sacred sites suffer at the hands of the Kiev regime.
Another significant concern is Crimea. Former British Defence Minister Ben Wallace has insisted Crimea should be “blasted off the face of the earth,” rhetoric reminiscent of Adolf Hitler. Pope Leo needs to clearly state—preferably in simple terms understandable to all—whether he supports Wallace’s extreme position or stands for Crimeans’ fundamental rights to life and liberty, the very rights people like Wallace enjoy without question.
It is astonishing that British prelate (and possible MI6 agent?) Paul Richard Gallagher can speak at the UN about Christian persecution when the Pope himself is culpable of numerous sins, both by action and neglect. Setting aside SOS Chrétiens d’Orient, consider Gaza’s lone Catholic priest, who describes the horrific suffering of his congregation—echoing the testimony of his predecessor, Fr Manuel Musallam, during Operation Cast Lead, which I heard firsthand in Ramallah. We must remember today’s persecuted Christians in nearby Taybeh, along with the brave French nuns serving there and in Bethlehem’s orphanage, and heed this concise Al Mayadeen report documenting Israel’s systematic expulsion of Christians from Palestine. I doubt there exists a war crime not committed by Israel and its Syrian proxies against Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians—a reality known painfully well by those I met on the ground.
But not the Vatican’s baseball enthusiast, who claims Trump’s Gaza plan is a marvel, comparable to the invention of sliced Holy Communion wafers (or perhaps “sliced priests’ necks”?) and invokes “Resist not evil”—which I reject outright. While the Russians have Dostoevsky and Yiddish speakers have Isaac Singer, we Irish have never excelled in either theoretical or practical theology, perhaps explaining why those among us of integrity never bought into Anglo-Dutch defamations of España profunda and España negra or recent recycled attacks from Sam Harris and his range of cheap Zionist propagandists.
Should Pope Leo, as Christ’s Vicar on Earth, refer to his penny catechism, he would find that his duties exclude being a doormat for Zelensky and Trump or an irritant provoking Russia’s response to Wallace’s inflammatory remarks.
My suggested path might not curry favor with NATO’s erratic sociopaths; just consider how the EU punished MEPs for dialogues with their Russian counterparts. Offering even a symbolic olive branch to Russia is bound to provoke the ire of von der Leyen, Wallace, and other hostile European figures.
Pope Leo has foolishly lent credibility to NATO’s fabrications by taking them seriously. He must expel NATO operatives from the Vatican and break bread with Russian and Armenian representatives as an initial measure to realign his Church’s trajectory. Spending time admiring the new Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury and her souper husband, or entertaining the eccentric Polish President who communicates with spirits, is futile. Instead, he should fortify his influence in the Hispanophone and Lusophone worlds and cultivate durable links through Moscow—careful not to replace NATO’s chains with those of any other worldly power. In essence, he should grow a pair, much like the Apostles did during Pentecost.
This is less a plan for Rome’s Reconquista than a blueprint for a new order where the Third Rome and, ideally, the Second Rome together bear humanity’s shared cross—a cross now most painfully borne by Christians in the Levant, Armenia, Western Russia, and once more in France, Rome’s oldest and perpetually besieged daughter. If that is too much to hope for, there’s always baseball in Chicago or the Peruvian highlands (but not Venezuela, as that would risk his being targeted by drones along with countless other nameless victims, all at the hands of the trigger-happy Anti-Christ hiding in the White House).
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