Finland Joins NATO but Poland Fighting US Over Dead Pope Is Undermining Unity

NATO leaders were beaming with pride and daring yesterday as they celebrated Finland joining NATO as the 31st member, after Turkey finally lifted its unilateral embargo.

Finland joins NATO

President Putin threatened dire consequences if NATO expanded its borders with Russia. Yet, with Finland joining, NATO is now doubling its borders with Russia. And it’s only a matter of time before Sweden and Ukraine enlarge the alliance even further.

Now this boy who cried wolf is threatening “countermeasures.” Reports suggest that he’s planning to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. But he’d have to station them in Venezuela, too, for NATO leaders to take him seriously. Otherwise, they’ll dismiss his nuclear threats as more hot air.

Embed from Getty ImagesNATO leaders are boasting of unprecedented unity and unrivaled strength. And they can point to the aid they’re providing Ukraine as evidence of both. NATO leaders are enabling Ukrainians to bedevil Russians on battlefields across Ukraine.

Finland joins NATO, but NATO is fighting over Pope John Paul II

Except that NATO infighting continues to undermine the nature and scope of their aid. That is the context in which Poland is picking an intramural fight with the United States.

After a year of ever-closer cooperation between Poland and the United States to ensure the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine, the Polish Foreign Ministry last month summoned the U.S. ambassador in Warsaw to discuss an urgent matter: a television documentary about a dead pope, John Paul II.

The documentary, which delved into the Polish-born pontiff’s negligent response to the sexual abuse of children by priests in Poland in the 1960s and 70s, had just been aired by an American-owned Polish-language TV channel, TVN24.

(The New York Times, April 5, 2023)

The documentary claims that Pope John Paul II covered up the sexual abuse of children. And that the Vatican fast-tracked his sainthood to cover up his complicity.

Of course, the latter would surprise no one. After all, news broke last year about Pope Benedict XVI covering up similar abuse. But, if those claims are true, that would make John Paul II unworthy of sainthood. That’s why Poland is damning the documentary to Hell.

You can understand why Polish leaders find those claims upsetting and untenable. After all, George Washington owned slaves. But imagine the outrage if a documentary suggested canceling him for that. That would mean tearing down thousands of monuments to him. And no one would even consider removing his face from the dollar bill or renaming the nation’s capital.

Even so, iPINIONS was in the vanguard of those warning that John Paul II was unworthy of sainthood. And this was years before the Vatican began the canonization fix… to whitewash the Legacy of Pope John Paul II.