Russia wants its people to believe that Western publics are not as hostile as their leaders. Pope Francis just helped
The Economist
To his millions of admirers, Pope Francis seems possessed of an almost angelic spirituality. But after his meeting with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on February 12th, some were left wondering whether the pontiff had rushed in where angels fear to tread. The meeting with his Russian counterpart drew Francis deep into geopolitics, and led him to condone Russia’s foreign policy and critique the West’s in ways that have infuriated some of the Catholic church’s supporters.
It is easy to see why the meeting appealed to Francis. Reconciliation is at the core of his world view. “Bridges last, and help peace. Walls do not,” he told an interviewer from Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, before the meeting. With militant Islamism going from strength to strength and Christians in the Middle East being persecuted for their beliefs, Catholic leaders privately lament that many churches are divided over theological issues to which most lay Christians are indifferent. They will be heartened to see that the first non-ecclesiastical issue dealt with in the joint declaration issued at the end of the meeting was the plight of Christians in the Middle East and north Africa.
The clergymen’s encounter is only the first step on a long road toward mutual understanding between their two churches. For Russia’s government, however, it is a diplomatic victory. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin often operate in tandem, and Patriarch Kirill could not have agreed to meet the pope without the blessing of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin has emphasised that Orthodox Christianity is a pillar of Russia’s national identity, appealing to conservative religious values to shore up his rule. When speaking on world affairs, the church is not an independent institution but, to some degree, an extension of the Russian state.
Russia’s ambassador to the Vatican said Francis and Mr Putin shared a “mutual affection”. That may or may not be true. But Francis made clear in his interview before the meeting that on certain issues he agrees with Mr Putin and disagrees with America and its allies. Speaking much more specifically than popes usually do on geopolitical matters, Francis contended that the disastrous outcome of the invasion of Iraq and the disappointing upshot of the Arab spring were predictable. His remarks on Iraq were not terribly controversial (popes routinely denounce the use of force), but the mention of the Arab spring seemed to suggest that the region’s strongmen should have been left in place. On Libya, where Western powers helped to bring down former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the pope was explicit: “The West ought to be self-critical.” And he continued: “In part, there has been a convergence of analysis between the Holy See and Russia.”
Francis did add that one should not go too far in endorsing the Kremlin’s views, because Russia “has its interests”. That is an understatement. Mr Putin has faced implacable hostility from Western states since his intervention in Ukraine. In response, says Alexander Baunov of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, he is attempting to “show that the traditional, religious West is less hostile”. The meeting with Francis has helped to underscore Russia’s renewed standing as a global power. Mr Putin’s spokesman called it “a mutual step forward” between Russia and the West.
The joint declaration issued after the meeting hewed close to the Kremlin’s positions on the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. Francis and Kirill agreed on the need to halt the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. They did not mention Russia’s role in Syria, where the Russian bombing campaign in support of the government of Bashar al-Assad has killed large numbers of civilians and exacerbated the humanitarian catastrophe.
In Ukraine, the presence of the Greek Catholic Church is a sore point for the Moscow Patriarchate, which sees it as a Catholic encroachment on Orthodox territory. Yet Francis has been sensitive toward Mr Putin’s view of the conflict there. The joint declaration deplores “hostility” in Ukraine, but omits any mention of Russia’s role, casting it as an internal struggle.
Many Ukrainians saw Mr Putin’s hand at work. Miroslav Marinovich, vice-rector of the Catholic University in Lviv, said that the sections relating to Ukraine were “obviously written in the Kremlin”. Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, went even further. The members of his church, he said, felt “betrayed by the Vatican”. For centuries, one of the key differences between the great Eastern and Western churches has been the subordination of Orthodox churches to temporal powers, and the relative independence of the Catholic one. Francis’s meeting with Kirill certainly demonstrated his independence from Western states, but to many of his own church’s followers, he seemed to be kissing the ring of the strongman in Moscow.
