On The Very Strange Recent Papal Pronunciations

I’m an atheist. I had a year or two of Sunday School when I was a kid because they used to let us play British Bulldog and football and some other kids from my school went. We never had a Bible in the house. I read it at university mainly out of a feeling that I should know the references. I have only attended churches for weddings and funerals. 

And yet somehow I know more about Christianity than the Pope or any US Bishop or Cardinal does. 

I know that for 2,000 years Christians have actually been prepared to fight sometimes. 

I know that the Bible is full of instances of God asking people to fight or supporting and even demanding wars. 

I know that every traditional Christian teaching on just war would include fighting against those who have slaughtered innocents as a just war. 

I know that Christendom only survived and Christianity only exists today because some Christians were prepared to fight. 

I know that Popes blessed armies and campaigns and kings who went to battle. 

I know that Popes called for Crusades. 

I know that Popes personally led armies. 

I know a few specific Bible verses and a few specific statements from Jesus that make it very clear that Christianity has never been a faith of absolute pacifism. 

I know that on multiple occasions when Islam tried to conquer the western world it was the most sincere and committed Christians who stopped it.

I know that Christians in Spain spent some 800 years fighting against Muslim invasion and then to free themselves from Muslim rule, that other Christians in Greece and the Balkans spent even longer doing the same. 

I even know a little about Pope Leo himself and that he never said a single word about Peace or about leaders who go to war not being Christians when Obama dropped 92,000 bombs on 7 different countries. 

I also know, as the Pope and Catholic bishops and cardinals apparently do not, that the Bible has several passages which approve of borders, suggest God’s approval of national boundaries, and that Heaven has its own rules regarding entry. 

How is it that I know the Bible is full of warriors, and that Christian civilisation was built, survived and was protected by people prepared to fight and whose fighting efforts were blessed by the Catholic Church, and the Pope doesn’t?

Could it be that other considerations than Biblical instruction, Christian ethics, and the life of Jesus strongly influence the Chicago born Pope, and the rest of the Catholic hierarchy? 

“The Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, manages approximately $6.5 billion in total assets (as of June 2025).

Catholic charities and churches in the United States have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for refugee and asylum-related programs. 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which directs much of this work, received $129.6 million in federal grants in 2023 and $123 million in 2022 for migration and refugee services.

This funding supports a network of over 65 Catholic Charities affiliates nationwide, which provide services like housing, employment assistance, legal aid, and language classes to refugees and unaccompanied minors.

The amount fluctuates yearly; funding was lower during the Trump administration (e.g., $48.5 million in 2018) and increased under President Biden.

A 2018 report noted that Catholic Charities and its affiliates received $742.6 million in federal funding for refugee programs since 2008.

Here are the federal funding figures for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its affiliated Catholic Charities for refugee and asylum-related programs from 2018 onwards:

2018: $48.5 million

2019: $52.7 million

2020: $47.8 million

2021: $67.5 million

2022: $122.6 million

2023: $129.6 million

Funding decreased during the Trump administration and then increased significantly under the Biden administration, particularly from 2021 onward.

Catholic organizations receive substantial U.S. government funding. Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official international humanitarian agency of the U.S. Catholic Church, received $4.6 billion from USAID between fiscal years 2013 and 2022 for humanitarian programs abroad.” 

4.6 BILLION from USAID in just 9 years. 

“Funding was lower during the Trump administration…..and then increased significantly under the Biden administration…..” 

Why IS the Catholic Church so in favour of mass migration and open borders and against fighting Islamic terrorist regimes these days? 

Because one thing is very clear to even an atheist like me: the Bible does not say nation states should not have borders, and the Bible does not say that Christians should never go to war. 

Indeed by the current Pope’s commentary, virtually every other Pope in history wasn’t a Christian. 

Purely statistically of course, it’s more likely that ONE Pope is a heretic, rather than NEARLY ALL of them before him.