Raphael Machado
The future geopolitics of the Vatican, under a new Pope, cannot be divorced from the need to revitalize Catholicism itself-restoring a sense of the "sacred" to the nihilistic lives of the nominally faithful.
Since Pope Francis' more serious illness between 2024 and 2025, the Catholic world had already become aware that the Pontiff might, perhaps, be approaching his final days. Thus, speculation about the future of the Church had begun months earlier. As a result, while his passing caused consternation and sadness among Catholics-and even non-Catholics-around the world, Pope Francis' death did not come as a surprise to anyone.
Now, Francis' pontificate was extremely polarizing and controversial, both among conservatives and progressives. This was largely due to the ambiguities in his statements and documents, which at times seemed to lean toward reformist positions and at others toward defending conservative stances. The mass media played a central role in amplifying these confusions.
Nevertheless, concerning the Vatican's geopolitics, it is easier to understand the strategy pursued by Pope Francis.
The geopolitical context in which Pope Francis emerged combines certain factors that resonate in other nations with those unique to the Vatican. After all, the Vatican, as the political face of the Catholic Church, entered the 21st century in a very different position than in the 15th, when it was the most powerful institution in the world-fundamentally unquestionable and superimposed over "national" interests. As the bearer of the "spiritual sword," in the terms of Pope Gelasius' doctrine, the Patriarch of Rome stood above the "temporal" authorities of Europe's kings, dukes, and counts.
These notions should not be dismissed as empty words. In the Middle Ages and the early Modern period, the Pope influenced peace and war, played a key role in the clash between European and Arab civilizations, sanctioned the division of the Americas between Portugal and Spain, and crowned and deposed sovereigns. But that era is over.
Countless spiritual, intellectual, and political phenomena reduced the Catholic Church to its lowest level of power in the 20th century-not to mention the vocational crisis of priest shortages, the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism in the Americas, and Europe's descent into indifference and nihilism. The international landscape, meanwhile, was dominated by the confrontation between the U.S. and the USSR, both nations governed by materialist ideologies. Thus, the Catholic Church's challenge for the 21st century was to exploit the cracks in the collapse of unipolarity to renew the Vatican's political influence.
A relevant observation, then, is that Pope Francis took a significant step toward a genuine internationalization of the Church. Asian cardinals, who made up 10% in 2013, rose to 18%. Sub-Saharan Africans increased from 8% to 12%, Ibero-Americans from 17% to 18%, and Middle Easterners and North Africans from 2% to 3%. In other words, Francis notably moved toward the East, where many see a solution to the West's "crisis of faith"-a dialectic that unexpectedly evokes René Guénon, but also the medieval millenarian expectations themselves.
Perhaps the most tangible symbol of this "Eastern turn" was precisely the Concordat between China and the Vatican on the appointment of bishops. Due to historical tensions between China and the Vatican, Chinese Catholics faced pressure, effectively splitting into two churches-one loyal to the Pope and another to the state.
To heal this rift and secure recognition and protection for Chinese Catholics, the Vatican acknowledged the Chinese state's right to nominate bishops while reserving the right to veto appointments.
Broadly speaking, this aligns with traditional Chinese practice. The Chinese Empire always held significant influence over priestly institutions, particularly in recognizing their authorities. Moreover, the Church historically granted European monarchs the authority to appoint bishops. In fact, for most of its history, the state either chose bishops or had veto power. Only with the ultramontanist and neo-Guelph shift in the 19th and 20th centuries did this notion become scandalous.
The Vatican also took a major step with another nation notorious for past tensions with the Catholic Church: Cuba. Pope Francis visited Cuba, as his two predecessors had. Alongside a resurgence of Catholicism in Cuba, Francis also inspired a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations.
Clearly, a central element of Vatican geopolitics under Francis was positioning the Holy See as a mediator in both domestic and international conflicts. For example, the Vatican played a role in bridging Venezuela's government and opposition, particularly during the peak of the South American nation's political-economic crisis.
The "Russian question" in the Vatican deserves special attention.
A heightened focus on Russia dates back to Benedict XVI's pontificate-he visited Moscow and met Putin in 2007, later recalling the encounter positively. Francis inherited this pursuit of understanding with Russia, marked by two key points: the Vatican recognized Russia's central role in defending Eastern Christians, given its involvement in protecting Assad and fighting Wahhabis in Syria and Iraq, and the 2016 Havana Declaration marked the closest rapprochement between Rome and Moscow since the schism nearly a millennium ago.
However, the Vatican was caught off guard by Russia's special military operation in Ukraine and struggled to balance condemning the incursion into Ukrainian territory with criticizing Western provocations against Russia. In this context, the Vatican-which prioritizes peace and conflict resolution above all-pushed Europe to mediate between the U.S. and Russia for a Ukrainian peace, a plea promptly ignored by Eurocrats, whose interests diverge sharply from Pope Francis' vision.
The Vatican's peacemaking efforts were also evident in the Palestinian issue. The Pontiff harshly criticized Israel for its genocide against the Palestinian people and maintained daily contact with Gaza's Catholic parish, earning him deep hatred from Israeli authorities (who even retracted a condolence message shortly after his death was announced). As in Ukraine, the Vatican failed diplomatically to stop Israel, but Francis' stance served as a moral guide for Catholics worldwide, offering a necessary critique in an era of proliferating "Christian Zionism."
The Middle East was indeed a focal concern for Francis, who met with Ayatollah Al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shia leader, to promote Islamo-Christian dialogue on a Shia foundation-key to ensuring Eastern Christianity's survival.
Yet Francis' attention extended beyond major conflicts. Much of Vatican diplomacy unfolded in Africa, far from mainstream media interest, where through radio, magazines, and grassroots communities, the Church worked to pacify civil conflicts and prevent regional disintegration, notably in the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
Immediately, we see the Vatican's immense task: to reposition the Holy See at the center of a world strained by tensions between continental powers-an immeasurable challenge, explaining the mixed results of Vatican geopolitics under Francis.
Broadly, while the Vatican appears to wield significant influence in smaller-scale conflicts and political tensions within traditionally Catholic nations, in central conflicts, the Pontiff has been solemnly ignored.
Naturally, this stems partly from the perceived decline in Catholics' religious seriousness, with official statistics masking that only 5-10% of Catholics actually attend Mass and fully adhere to religious dogma.
Thus, the future geopolitics of the Vatican, under a new Pope, cannot be divorced from the need to revitalize Catholicism itself-restoring a sense of the "sacred" to the nihilistic lives of the nominally faithful.