Pope Francis has blamed Western military interventions for the rise of the Islamic State terror group and for the distabilising of Libya and the ensuing migration crisis in the Mediterranean.
In an interview for a new book, the Holy Father said the invasion of Iraq and support for jihadi groups in the so-called “Arab Spring” had created more problems than they have solved.
The British and French support for jihadi groups in the Libyan civil war of 2011, which led to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, had particularly disastrous consequences, the Pope said.
The instability that followed the conflict has since allowed warlords to traffic weapons to jihadis attacking Christians in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa and criminal gangs to traffic vast numbers of migrants across the Mediterranean, tens of thousands of whom have drowned during attempted crossings.
The Pope also said that the invasion of Iraq by an American-led coalition in 2003 directly led to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq neighbouring Syria a decade later.
Francis said the West was misguided in their policies to “import its own type of democracy” into countries with a political culture “similar to” tribal.
“Let’s think about Libya,” said the Pope. “A Libyan told me that they once only had one Gaddafi, but now they have 53.”

When an Israeli air raid destroyed Walaa Sobeh’s house and much of her neighbourhood, the Palestinian Muslim sought shelter in Gaza’s oldest church.
At the Church of Saint Porphyrius, she found not just sanctuary, but a feeling of belonging to “one family” — united by both the terror of bombs exploding around them and a hope that they could survive Israel’s attacks.
So she telephoned other relatives in north Gaza and asked them to make their way to the church, too. Sobeh and her family are among hundreds of Palestinians across different faiths who have found safety — at least for now — at the church.
At a time when the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza have sparked a surge in Islamophobia in parts of the world, the Greek Orthodox church has emerged as an emblem of a deeper identity as Palestinians.
“We are here living the day, not sure if we can make it to the night. But what eases our pain is the humble and warm spirit of everyone around,” Sobeh said. She described receiving “enormous support from the priests and other people in the church who volunteer tirelessly around the clock to help the displaced families”.
So far, the church has escaped Israeli missiles.
“The Israeli military has bombed many places of sanctuary,” said Father Elias, a priest at Saint Porphyrius, adding that he was “not sure that Israel won’t bomb the church”, even though it provides shelter for hundreds of civilians.
Israeli bombs have hit several mosques and schools sheltering people whose homes have been blown up.
Any strike on the church “would not only be an attack on religion, which is a vile deed, but also an attack on humanity”, Father Elias said. “Our humanity calls us to offer peace and warmth to everyone in need.”

Pope Francis and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone on October 22 afternoon to discuss “the latest developments in Israel and Gaza,” according to a statement from the White House.
The Holy See Press Office said earlier the phone call lasted about 20 minutes and focused on “conflict situations in the world and the need to identify paths to peace.”
“The president condemned the barbarous attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians and affirmed the need to protect civilians in Gaza,” the White House statement said. The two also talked about Biden’s trip to Israel last week and his efforts at humanitarian assistance in the region.
The pope and the president also discussed “the need to prevent escalation in the region and to work toward a durable peace in the Middle East,” the White House said.
Earlier in the day, Pope Francis in his Sunday Angelus appealed for peace in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which is entering its third week.

A recent official census of religious identity in Hungary offered bad news for those concerned with the future of Christianity in central Europe.
For the first time, a majority of Hungarians (56.6%) failed to declare membership of a faith tradition, with 16.5% declaring “no religion” and a further 40.1% choosing not to answer the question at all.
While all the country’s main denominations were hit badly, results for the Roman Catholic Church, historically the nation’s majority tradition, were worst of all — a drop of 1.1 million (nearly 30%), compared to 2011. The numbers went from an estimated 3.69 million people identifying as Catholics in 2011 to 2.6 million today.
Combined with a smaller loss between 2001 and 2011, Hungary’s Catholic population has shrunk an astounding 50% this century, to just 27.5% of the population.
These facts contrast starkly with the rhetoric of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s far-right prime minister, who has described ”Christian Hungary” as a supposed bulwark against immigration of Muslims and other religious minorities into Europe.

Pope Francis reaffirmed the impossibility of women becoming priests, or even modern Church deacons, in an interview for a book released October 24 in Italy.
The question of whether some women in the early Church were “deaconesses” or another kind of collaborator with the bishops is “not irrelevant, because holy orders is reserved for men,” the pope said.
The pope’s answers to questions about women’s roles in the Church were included in a book published in June in Spanish as “El Pastor: Desafíos, razones y reflexiones sobre su pontificado.”
The book, whose title means in English “The Shepherd: Struggles, Reasons, and Thoughts on His Papacy,” was released in Italian on Oct. 24. The Italian edition is titled “Non Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze,” or “You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes.”
About the possibility of women deacons, Francis pointed out that the diaconate “is the first degree of holy orders in the Catholic Church, followed by the priesthood and finally the episcopate.”
He said he formed commissions in 2016 and 2020 to study the question further, after a study in the 1980s by the International Theological Commission established that the role of deaconesses in the early Church “was comparable to the benedictions of abbesses.”
In response to a question about why he is “against female priesthood,” Francis told Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin and Italian journalist Francesca Ambrogetti, the authors of the book, that it is “a theological problem.”
“I think we would undermine the essence of the Church if we considered only the priestly ministry, that is, the ministerial way,” he said, pointing out that women mirror Jesus’ bride the Church.
“The fact that the woman does not access ministerial life is not a deprivation, because her place is much more important,” he said. “I think we err in our catechesis in explaining these things, and ultimately we fall back on an administrative criterion that does not work in the long run.”