It must be the highlight for any Roman Catholic to meet the head of his church. So it must have been last week for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a practicing Catholic.
Rubio was on more than a spiritual journey. His mission was to persuade Pope Leo XIV of the rightness, even the righteousness, of the Trump administration’s actions to destroy Iran’s goal of acquiring a nuclear weapon and likely using it as a means of intimidation, or possibly launching it as a weapon of war.
The pope is committed to resolving disputes through diplomacy. That course would be worth pursuing if Iran’s leaders and the U.S had even remotely similar goals in mind.
Just as Catholics and Protestants differ in their theology, Islamists differ with just about everybody else, whether they be religious or secular. Tehran’s goals also differ from just about everybody else, be they religious, or even secular. Islamic extremists have repeatedly made clear their goal is world domination. They openly proclaim Allah has commanded them to do so. History and current events show they are serious.
Winston Churchill understood this early in his life. In his 1899 book, “The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan,” Churchill acknowledged the “splendid qualities of individual Muslims,” but described the religion itself as a “retrograde force” and “far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.”