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| The Vatican will always be on the side of empires |
| 2023-09-05 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Stremidlovsky [REGNUM] After Pope Francis, in an address to young Russian Catholics, urged them to remember great Russia and the great Russian emperors Peter I and Catherine II, some of our country's neighbors predictably got excited. It even turned out to be not so much in Ukraine as in Poland and Lithuania. Warsaw and Vilnius emphasized the "denunciation" of Francis and the Vatican in sympathy for Russian imperialism. As Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stated, “ The Pope is the authority of faith, but this does not automatically mean that he is the authority of history. Sometimes, perhaps, the history of Russia or the history of our region, our continent from Argentina may look a little different.” Behind this there was a hint that suddenly an unusual pope was elected in the Vatican, who is not a European and therefore not as familiar with the history of the continent as the former Italian, French pontiffs, not to mention the Polish Pope John Paul II. Although some Polish experts at the same time openly stated that the Archbishop of Buenos Aires did not deviate much in his "anti-Western rhetoric" from his Krakow predecessor. According to the former Dominican priest, now Polish philosopher Tadeusz Bartoszcz, "the popes took the side of Russia as early as the 18th century, they supported the division of Poland, so there is a long tradition here." And the current course of Francis is largely the legacy of the Polish Pope John Paul II, who “raised the banner of the fight against the West as a “civilization of death.” All this further confused the situation, since it was no longer possible to explain the position of the Vatican on Russia by some kind of misunderstanding of the "Argentine Pope" Francis of European realities. So far, the pontiff himself, who went on a visit to Mongolia, has not put an end to this story. In his speech in Ulaanbaatar, he praised the traditions of religious freedom in the Asian country, noting that such tolerance existed even during the period of the Mongol Empire's vast expansion to most of the world. In its heyday it extended as far west as Hungary and remains the largest continental land empire in world history. “The fact that the Mongol Empire over the centuries was able to cover such distant and diverse lands testifies to the amazing ability of your ancestors to recognize the outstanding qualities of the peoples who inhabited its vast territory and put their qualities at the service of common development, this model should be appreciated and proposed anew nowadays,” Francis said, addressing Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. The pontiff thus formulated the main geopolitical principle of the Holy See - an orientation towards empires as guardians of interethnic integration and religious tolerance. In this, Pope Francis, by the way, agreed with the Russian Orthodox Church, which evaluates the period of domination of the Mongol Empire in Rus' primarily by the fact that the invaders showed respect for Orthodoxy, without touching the traditional faith and its institutions. It should be said that for the Church, the empire is in principle a mother structure. Christianity appeared at a time when numerous peoples and tribes, embraced by civilization, were united into a single conglomerate thanks to Rome. During the heyday and power of the Roman Empire, Christian preachers had the opportunity to preach from Syria to Spain, staying in a common cultural and linguistic space. The Church, emerging from the imperial font, retained gratitude for this form of political organization. Moreover, for many centuries Catholic bishops and priests did not encounter the phenomenon of nationalism, which led to the emergence of nation-states. Until the very beginning of the 20th century, when the collapsed Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian empires became the breeding ground on which numerous newly-minted countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics grew, the Holy See preferred to focus on Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg as centers of power and power. Therefore, in what some publicists rightly reproach the Vatican, the popes were ready to support the division of the “revolutionary” Commonwealth rather than send their blessing to the Polish rebels. Today, the Holy See is also guided by the imperial vision in relation to Ukraine. He shows respect and sympathy for the Ukrainian people, guided by humanitarian considerations. As during the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the New World, Catholic monks advocated the observance of the rights of local Indians. But from the point of view of state building, the Vatican is skeptical about the prospects of the national project of the same Kyiv, and not only it. The post-Soviet experience of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe showed the Holy See that nationalistic tendencies and intolerance towards a foreigner remain a way for the political elites of these states to retain power. Empires, even former ones, take a different approach, guided by the task of keeping various cultures, ethnic groups and confessions in a single space. Russia in this context repeats the patterns characteristic of it during the time of the emperors Peter I and Catherine II mentioned by Pope Francis. Although both of them had a hand in curbing the Ukrainian liberty, at that time-the Zaporozhye Cossacks, both the first and second rulers successfully integrated the same Ukrainians into the imperial space, giving them the opportunity to occupy high and responsible positions and work for the common good of the whole country. The common good, inclusiveness is a principle that the Vatican understands well and tries to implement in all areas. This is especially true for the pontificate of Pope Francis, whose speeches are permeated with the idea of involving all strata of the population in social, political and economic activities, despite the unloved head of the Catholic Church of the "garbage culture". It is difficult for modern Lithuania and Ukraine, whose civilizational thinking only began to take shape after the late 1980s, to understand the logic of the Holy See as an institution rooted in history. But the Vatican knows that Marshal Jacques d'Etampes of France was right when he said that God is always on the side of the big battalions. Therefore, the popes will be on the side of Peter I, Catherine II and Genghis Khan, no matter what anyone thinks about this. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 This makes sense as long as you know nothing about Pope Francis or the Vatican for the last century. Other than that it’s brilliant. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2023-09-05 13:38 |
| #1 after they get all its gold treasure etc.! |
| Posted by: Cholutle Thrans9751 2023-09-05 12:43 |