Well. If not God then at least his representative on Earth.
Prior to a private meeting between the Pope and the Russian President Vladimir Putin the US in the form of its Ambassador to the Vatican has been telling the Pope what he should say to Putin. Apparently the Pope should “raise concerns” and specifically “could say something more about the concern on territorial integrity”. [1]
The US is lecturing the Pope on what he should say in a private meeting with the leader of another nation. This is pure godlessness.
The US supported the coup in Ukraine. Ukraine was a divided country. The 25% of the population who live in the regions which were not involved in the coup and who were disenfranchised by it, have rebelled. The coup government has tried (Soviet style) to use tanks and bombs to oblige them to submit. More than 6000 people have died. The US might therefore be better advised to be approaching the Pope on bended knee asking for forgiveness for having provoked yet another war, rather than lecturing him on what to say to Putin.
Analysis
The US is trying to manage the narrative. The Pope as a Christian is likely to be even handed. He is likely to urge peace on all parties to the conflict. That is the religious message. This would be a disaster for the US narrative which depends on making Russia out to be 100% to blame for everything. The US Ambassador publicly urging the Pope to raise concerns with Putin about “territorial integrity” is a ploy to sabotage an emerging narrative that would see all the parties to the conflict held equally responsible. It is about narrative management and damage limitation.
After the meeting the Vatican released a statement. The full text of the statement is reproduced here. [2] The Vatican was even handed in its message:
Regarding the situation in the Ukraine, the Holy Father said that we must engage in a sincere and great effort to achieve peace and emphasized the importance of rebuilding a climate of dialogue and the need for all concerned parties to implement the agreements of Minsk.
In what is simply a shameless piece of lying AP reports this as if the Pope had given a personal reproof to Putin about his insincerity. Their headline for this story reads:
Pope tells Putin: ‘Sincere’ peace efforts needed for Ukraine
As is evident from the text of the Vatican statement the Pope’s message about “sincerity” (a characteristic Christian message) was intended for all parties. AP shamelessly and for that matter godlessly manipulates this to feed the Western narrative about an “insincere” Putin. (The claim is that Russia does not support Minsk 2).
AP was not the only Western press outlet to tell these brazen lies.
We can see in all this absolute coordination in narrative building between the US State Department and the major Western news agencies. And then they get into a tizz about Russian “propaganda bullhorns”…
Notes
1. http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-meets-tardy-putin-us-official-calls-tougher-talk
3. http://news.yahoo.com/putin-visits-italy-pope-g-7-snub-over-085532019.html
The New Observer 