The Iranian regime this year massacred over 40,000 of its own people, repeatedly bombed civilians across the Middle East, escalated persecution of Christians, and supported Islamic terror groups. Yet Pope Leo XIV just gave that regime’s ambassador the highest Vatican diplomatic honor.
Now, the pope usually gives this particular honor to all foreign ambassadors who provide more than two years of service at the Vatican, but I still argue that what Leo did was cowardly and wrong. He had a chance to take a moral stand by telling the Iranian ambassador that he was no longer welcome at the Vatican until his regime stopped massacring its own people and violently persecuting Christians. Instead, Poe Leo chose to go ahead with giving the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX to Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari. Jesus Christ cast out those profaning the Temple with a whip (John 2, Matthew 21). Pope Leo XIV welcomes the representative of a Christian-hating, mass murdering dictatorship.
As a Catholic, I know that there have been corrupt popes before in history, and that papal infallibility only applies to very specific pronouncements as set out in canon law. Also, I know that, like St. Catherine of Siena, Catholics sometimes need to condemn certain actions by the pope. This is certainly one of those times; for Leo, giving the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX, the highest active diplomatic distinction of the Vatican, to the Islamic Iranian regime’s representative is a grave moral failure. Instead of standing up for persecuted Christians in countries like Iran and Lebanon, the pope has been rewarding the Islamic jihadis who are their persecutors. If only the Vatican had the spirit of the Crusades again.
May 13 is the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, commemorating visions of Jesus‘s mother to three Portuguese Shepherd children in the early 1900s, and it would be a good time for the pope to rededicate himself to fighting evil ideologies as Mary urged.
Pope Leo has also condemned the United States and Israel for striking the Iranian regime, even though the U.S. and Israel were focusing on military targets important to the terrorist mullahs, while the Iranian regime responded by bombarding civilians. Furthermore, the pope totally ignored the fact that the Iranian regime has been sponsoring and committing terrorism almost continuously for nearly half a century, meaning that America and Israel did not start the war; they are just trying to finish it.
Related: Pope Leo’s Predecessor Built Vatican Walls After Islamic Sack
InfoVaticana reported on the high diplomatic dignity Iran’s Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari received:
Although the award is usually part of the Vatican diplomatic protocol and is typically granted to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See after several years of service, the geopolitical context and the Pope’s recent statements on the conflict with Iran have turned the gesture into a subject of strong debate.
The Order of Pius IX—also known as the Pian Order—was instituted by Pope Pius IX in 1847 and is considered one of the highest honorary distinctions of the Holy See. Today it is mainly awarded to heads of state and high diplomatic representatives.
According to Iranian media such as Press TV, Mehr News and the agency West Asia News, the distinction was granted to Mokhtari in recognition of his diplomatic work and his efforts to promote “peace, justice, and opposition to warmongering”.
It would be laughable except for the lives involved, as the Iranian regime is still executing protesters and sponsoring terrorism.
Again, I want to emphasize that despite the fact that the Vatican will defend this move as part of its typical routine for recognizing foreign ambassadors, the pope and his advisors ought to make a distinction between representatives of legitimate governments and representatives of heinous terrorist tyrannies. During World War II, Pius XII didn’t take an official side, but he helped save so many Jews and escaped prisoners from the Nazis that he received the title of “Righteous Gentile.” In 1085, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade against Muslim invaders in the Holy Land by urging Christians to fight “against the heathen.” Both the peaceful Pius and the warlike Urban took a moral stand. Leo has failed to follow the example of either.
And yet the Iranian regime has been specifically targeting Christians for increased persecution, as Christian Solidarity International reported in January:
Over the past two years, a surge in arrests and prosecutions has pushed Christian persecution in Iran to unprecedented levels…The judge told the Christian convert it was “a disgrace” that he was “even breathing the air in this sacred courtroom.” Moments later, he handed down a ten-year prison sentence.
This case, from 2020, was not an isolated one. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, Christian believers from a Muslim background are treated as national security threats and subjected to official persecution…since Iran amended its penal code in 2021, the persecution has escalated.
And that does not even take into account all the Christians displaced and killed by Iranian terrorist proxies like Hezbollah.
It is not sufficient for Pope Leo to maintain a status quo with genocidal, Christian-killing dictatorships. He has an obligation to do better.
