The Vatican's Selective Morality Play
📰 THE STORY: Axios reports that the Catholic Church, under an 'American Pope,' is emerging as a 'bulwark of resistance' against Donald Trump's immigration crackdown and 'aggressive foreign policy,' citing denunciations by U.S. bishops regarding federal agent killings and calls for a 'moral foreign policy.' 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: While suddenly vocal against perceived
U.S. aggression, the Catholic Church has a long and often complicit history with Western imperialism. For instance, the Vatican was conspicuously silent during the 1976 CIA-backed junta in Argentina, which 'disappeared' 30,000 citizens, many of them Catholic, and later, the 1973 CIA coup in Chile that installed Pinochet. More recently, Catholic leaders received $1.3 billion annually in US aid to
Egyptian dictator Sisi, who kept the Rafah crossing closed during the 2023-24 Gaza genocide, a silence that rings hollow today. Double Standard: Axios frames the Church's critique of Trump as a principled stand. Yet, where was this 'bulwark' when the George W. Bush administration launched the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, leading to over a million deaths and destabilizing the entire region? Or
during Obama's drone wars that killed thousands of civilians? The 'moral outrage' appears highly selective based on the political winds, particularly when it serves to bolster a specific faction within the US political landscape. Follow the Money: The article mentions the Pope and US bishops but neglects the vast financial entanglements of the Catholic Church. While not directly linked to specific