Can the pope ever put the schism behind him?

​Anonymous
 
Just today, we read that the Pope is part of the grand scheme to keep people under the delusion that Russia is the problem and not the solution in Syria and that China should not help to moderate between the West and North Korea in the interest of peace. And in keeping with the Western reporting format, no reasons whatsoever are given for his conclusions. The CIA issues accusations against Russia assuming the reader will bow to its expertise and the pope perhaps assumes his audience knows he is God’s spokesman.
 
Below is our translation from the Italian of Pope Francisco's statement to journalist Eugenio Scalfari of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
 
“Pope Francisco told me was very concerned about the G20 summit. ‘I’m afraid there are rather dangerous alliances between the powers that have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Putin and Assad in the war in Syria’.”
 
There he goes again, mixing geopolitics and religion. We shall analyze the problem with Mr. Bersoglio’s meddling, but first let us preface our remarks by saying that, while we respect titles, we must respectfully decline to use the term “his Holiness” when referring to the pope. Traditional Protestants generally adhere to the Bible first, above any church, and they recall the words “God is no respecter of persons.” Nowhere in the scriptures do we read of a human other than Christ being holy, whereas, in Orthodoxy, “his Holiness” refers to the patriarch, and to no one else. But back to our analysis.
 
Firstly, there are some (hopefully not too many) Catholics who believe that the pope is God’s mouthpiece in all matters, even those in which he has no expertise, such as, oh say, international relations and geopolitics.
 
These naïve souls will unthinkingly assume that God is talking through Jorge Bertoglio when he brays about Russia, Assad and other things he simply fails to comprehend.
 
Secondly, there are skeptics amongst us, such as Protestants and non-believers, who will instantly recall in this context the Great Schism of 1054 and the untoward influence it had on Byzantium and what is now called Eastern Orthodoxy – which today includes, for example, Russian Orthodoxy and Syrian Orthodoxy. We refer here to two savage attacks, the first by the Byzantines, ie, the 1182 Massacre of the Latins, where the Roman Catholics from Italy (the West) were on the receiving end of the violence triggered by their alleged arrogance and refusal to heed Byzantine laws; and the second, the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 when the Catholics turned the tables on the Byzantines (Easterners) and massacred them.
 
This crusade against what we now call the Eastern Orthodox resulted indirectly in such a weakening of the Christians in that region that they soon fell prey to Muslim invaders, and today, since Christians could not get along with each other, the Turks are still there and are a thorn in the side to all of Europe.
 
The resounding message from those tragic events for all of Christendom today is that peaceful coexistence and tolerance in the Christian world is essential for the survival of the faith and Western culture.
 
So is the pope hearing this message?
 
Incredibly, there has been no substantive change in the West in its attitude toward the East. Religious intolerance is still the order of the day.
 
Far from an attempt at reconciliation, the pope’s statement is a clear harsh condemnation of the East – Russia, Assad and ally China.
 
Now note that when asked once about a matter of morality defined in the Bible, a matter clearly within his purview, Jorge demurred: “who am I to judge?” (one is tempted to ask: Well, you are the pope, aren’t you?).
 
Yet in matters of geostrategic import, Jorge, whose specialty is preaching and administering wafers and wine glasses to the faithful, is only too willing to offer an unsolicited opinion.
 
The fact that he declines to explain why the US-Russia alliance or the Russia-Assad alliance is dangerous, suggests that the old anti-Eastern prejudice is as operative today as it was a millennium ago and that religion is still the blessed tie that separates. By warning of the Russia-Assad alliance, Mr. Bersoglio is warning against the legitimately elected president of Syria, who is seen by Orthodox Christians in Syria as the only obstacle to the eradication of their kind in the region. Interviews with Syrian Christians constantly confirm this. They fear US intervention and pray fervently that Russia will prevail (which, thank God, it has so far). In condemning the Russia-Assad alliance, and without providing a rationale for this condemnation, the pope is suggesting to historically aware Protestants, Catholics and non-believers alike that he is simply supporting the age-old papal antipathy of the East and all it stands for. While hoping that his remarks will be taken as a sage warning (of what?), he is in fact doing nothing more than nakedly promoting corrosive religious bigotry. Silly us. We thought such papally inspired persecution was confined to the Middle Ages.
 
But what about Putin? Is he not doing likewise, simply favoring the East and bashing the West?
 
Let us consider the following:
 
In November 2015 a Turkish fighter shot down a Russian jet and the Turkish government justified this attack – an act of war – on the allegation that the jet had grazed the Syrian-Turkish border on the Turkish side. No matter how you look at it, since both sides were supposedly united in the common cause against terrorism, the act was not in any way morally justified. Of course, the US government was delighted at the shootdown and said nothing.
 
But the Turks were at that time close to concluding a lucrative deal with Russia for laying a gas pipeline through Turkey. This fact may have been the reason that Erdogan later apologized to Putin for the shootdown and claimed it was not done on his orders. More importantly, in the meantime, a coup was attempted against Erdogan, including a murder plot to kill him. Once the coup was put down, a rumor surfaced that it was Putin who had warned Erdogan about the attempt, enabling him to avoid landing his plane at the airport where the plotters waited with their long knives.
 
Whether the story of Putin saving Erdogan’s life is true or just a rumor, Putin did in fact tell Erdogan that the US was behind the coup, and thanks to this sincerity on Putin’s part, the two leaders made up and fully restored the relations between their countries, thanks to Putin’s willingness to forgive. Whilst there have been hitches and glitches in Turkey-Russia relations, the reconciliation has held. We are tempted to call Putin’s behavior applied Christianity.
 
Further, we note that US officialdom and msm abuse Putin constantly, frequently call him a thug but without a shred of evidence to support this title, while Putin invariably turns the other cheek, always referring to the US as a partner. You can’t help but think of Jesus.
 
So here is a man who was educated in law and trained in the art of strategic intelligence behaving suspiciously like a devout Christian in his public life.
 
Contrast this with a man who was educated in the outward performance of Christian religious rites and rituals but who still bears a grudge against Christians with a different style of worship because of a conflict that occurred a thousand years ago. He just can’t seem to get over it.