Pope Francis prays for an end to the violence in the Holy Land, especially in Gaza where a humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded, as well as for the ...
And I call on the Pope to release internal Vatican documentation and hoarded gold/loot Catholic extremists / fascists stole during WW2. The leader of which was hidden by the Church in the Vatican after the war
We can both make ineffective pleas. At least mine isn't hypocritical.
Large numbers of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, communists, and Croatians hostile to the regime were interned in concentration camps, while countless others were massacred in towns and villages. The Ustasha were directly involved in the administration and in the orchestration of the killings. In addition, some 200,000 Serbs were forcibly converted to Catholicism. According to the Ustasha blueprint, one-third of Serbs were to be killed, another third expelled, and a final third converted to Catholicism.
- "Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice" (2009) Ed. Nicholas A. Robins, Adam Jones
For clarity, Serbs are historically usually Eastern Orthodox Christians.
And church loved that. Pius XII was very chummy with Ustase and after war helped a lot of them avoid justice, and that include Alojzije Stepinac, head of croatian church who was very close with ustase and organized church to support them. He even make Stepinac cardinal after war. Pope John Paul II even beatified Stepinac as a martyr (his “martyrdom” was 5 years in prison and then being confined to one town) and wanted to make him full saint, the process was stopped only by Francis.
I suppose he could call for another crusade or maybe dispatch the Swiss Guard to the region. /S
Somewhat more seriously, though not something I’m actually suggesting or would necessarily want to see, he is a head of state and a prominent public figure, it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to play a role in some sort of negotiations as an intermediary or something.
He also has the ears of potentially every Catholic in the world, as well as non-catholics who may want to hear his perspective, and while I’d personally very much rather the church mind their own business and not get involved, he could potentially give guidance to them about how they should feel about the situation, what they can/should or should not do to help, what they should be asking of their governments, etc.
Again, I personally would rather the church keep out of it, but those are some options available should people feel that the Pope should involve himself.
He can’t do any of those things because when they inevitably fail he loses any remaining power people still thought the pope has. If he can’t even succeed as a figurehead, what good is the position in the first place?
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