“Be not afraid.” When Pope John Paul II uttered those words in 1979, they resonated far beyond his native Warsaw, Poland. His proclamation was not simply spiritual guidance, but a principled stance against Soviet tyranny. John Paul II gave voice to the oppressed and reminded us why moral clarity matters.

Sadly, that clarity was sometimes hard to find in the papacy of Pope Francis. Francis died Monday, aged 88.

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Francis’s responses caused outrage in Ukraine and beyond. Throughout the war, Francis consistently refused to name Russia or its president, Vladimir Putin, as the aggressor. In March 2024, he went so far as to suggest that Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag” and negotiate. Even the Polish President Andrzej Duda, with his very Catholic electorate, called the pope’s remarks “unfortunate.”

Why was Francis an enabler to Putin’s aggression?

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis was shaped by the country’s Peronist era. As a Jesuit in the 1970s, he was linked to the Guardia de Hierro, a group supporting President Juan Perón’s return from exile — an early signal of his affinity for Peronist ideas marked by populism, dislike of the United States, and skepticism........

© Washington Examiner