ROME – Whatever one makes of his aims or tactics, there’s no doubt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a formidable political operator. Over 20 years in power, he’s pioneered a populist economic strategy known as Erdonomics, harnessed moderate Islam as a potent political force, and positioned Turkey as a regional and global power, all the while holding on to a strong base of domestic support.
On Saturday, the Turkish leader added another accomplishment to his résumé, arguably one no less impressive: Getting Pope Francis to do something he obviously didn’t want to do – in this case, to speak out, at long last, on the controversy over the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics eight days before.
Given how notoriously stubborn the Argentine pontiff can become when he feels painted into a corner, the fact that Erdoğan succeeded where others had failed, including members of the pope’s own hierarchy, has to be seen as fairly impressive.
Late Saturday evening in Rome, the Vatican Press Office released a statement in French saying the Holy See had been “saddened” by the July 26 ceremony, and indicating it wished to join “voices that have been raised in recent days to deplore the offense given to many Christians and believers of other religions.”
The reference, of course, was to the apparent parody of the Last Supper, which caused global outrage.
The Vatican statement added that an event intended to foster global unity should not ridicule religious beliefs, and said that while freedom of speech isn’t in question, it must be balanced against respect for others.
RELATED: Vatican belatedly joins chorus of protest over Olympic Last Supper parody
In journalism school, aspiring reporters are taught that of the six classic elements of a news lead – who, what, where, why, how and when – the “when” is usually the least important. This is the exception that proves the rule, however, because in this case the “when” is actually the heart of the matter.
The Vatican statement came out at 7:47 p.m. on a Saturday night, which is an unusual hour for a communiqué on anything other than an emergency. This clearly didn’t qualify, since the ceremony in question took place a full eight days before. The Vatican had plenty of chances to comment in a more typical fashion, including the pope’s own Sunday Angelus address the week before.
In the end, it was Erdoğan who seemingly broke the logjam.
Last Tuesday, the Turkish leader told members of his ruling AK Party (AKP) that he would call Pope Francis “at the first opportunity” to urge the pontiff to speak out against the “disgusting” scene at the Olympics. On Thursday, his office released a statement on social media indicating that the call had taken place, claiming Francis had thanked Erdoğan for his “sensitivity against the desecration of religious values.”
That left the Vatican with two choices: Either say nothing, and thereby leave the Turkish leader hanging, or say something, however reluctantly. In the end, they chose the latter.
Prior to Saturday, the pope’s silence on the Last Supper controversy almost made it seem he was angling for an Olympic medal in holding his tongue. His reticence was especially striking given how many Catholic bishops had spoken out, making the pope conspicuous by his absence.
In terms of why, several factors suggest themselves.
First, this is not the only case in which critics have complained about his alleged silence. For years, a drumbeat of dissatisfaction has circulated around the pope’s unwillingness to publicly condemn China’s record on human rights and religious freedom. More recently, there’s also been grumbling about the pope’s restraint when it comes to condemning Russia and Vladimir Putin for the war in Ukraine.
In both cases, supporters argue that Francis has his eyes on a bigger prize: With China it’s full diplomatic relations as well as protection of the country’s small Catholic minority, while with Russia it’s the possibility of serving as a neutral arbiter in attempting to negotiate peace.
Some observers detected a similar calculus here.
Francis might have been disinclined to pick a diplomatic fight with France right now, they argued, in part because of a decision last March to insert a purported right to abortion into the country’s constitution. Especially as a leftist coalition may be on the brink of coming to power, one that likely wouldn’t be inclined to be friendly to the church, perhaps the pontiff believed it was a good moment to take the high road.
More basically, supporters of Pope Francis say he didn’t want to make the situation more tense than it already is, and anyway, he’s got bigger fish to fry. That was the gist, for instance, of an analysis by the generally pope-friendly Italian news site Il Sussidiario regarding Erdoğan’s call with Francis.
“The ‘low profile’ of Pope Francis is about not throwing more fuel on the fire, in a conflict in which religion is far from being the truly key theme,” the piece by Niccolò Magnani said.
“The fairly boring opening ceremony of the Olympics speaks about provocations, which are an end in themselves, the woke culture and so on,” Magnani wrote. “Christian freedom and the distinction between faith and politics is very clear, and these are themes just slightly deeper and more interesting than a media fight over whether you’re for or against drag queens.”
Also not to be underestimated is the possibility that Francis didn’t want to be associated with some of the figures who were leading the charge.
Indeed, any chance the pope might speak out of his own volition probably was quashed on July 28, when recently excommunicated Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the bête noire of the Francis papacy, issued his own two-page statement insisting that “tolerance cannot be the alibi for the systematic destruction of Christian society.”
At that point, Francis arguably might have been more appalled at the prospect of publicly agreeing with Viganò than with allowing a ham-handed poke in the eye at Christian sensitivities to pass without comment.
We probably also ought to note that Francis theoretically was on vacation in July, with General Audiences and most other papal activities suspended. In addition, there’s the fact that many people expected Pope Francis to have something to say, and from the beginning this has been a pope who delights in upending expectations.
Given all that, how was Erdoğan able to cajole the pope into breaking his silence – even if indirectly, through an unsigned statement, and one released at an hour seemingly designed to minimize the amount of attention it would get, sort of a Vatican equivalent of the White House’s famous “Friday dump?”
First of all, Erdoğan cleverly packaged his appeal on the Olympics with a discussion of the war in Gaza during his call with the pope, among other things suggesting that Francis hold talks with countries supporting Israel as part of diplomatic efforts to avoid escalation.
Brokering a peace in the Holy Land is a role the pope and his Vatican team would dearly love to play, and if the cost of securing the backing of one of the world’s most influential Muslim leaders in that effort was to toss him a bone on the Olympic controversy, they may have felt it’s a price worth paying.
In addition, Pope Francis is attempting to reorient the Vatican away from its historical profile as a Western institution towards a more truly global, non-aligned role, and a key part of that agenda has been outreach to the Islamic world. Seeing the rising tide of Islamic outrage over the Olympic tableau, Francis may have felt it was more important to signal solidarity than to indulge his own preferences.
Whatever the case, the fact remains that for a full week, Catholics of various stripes – including, in private, several bishops who felt the papal silence was undercutting their own protests, and who communicated their disappointment to Rome – were unable to elicit a Vatican response, while Erdoğan did the trick.
In Turkish politics, assigning nicknames to leaders is a time-honored part of the game. Over the years, Erdoğan variously has been dubbed Reis, meaning “chief”; Beyefendi, meaning either “gentleman” or “crony,” depending on whether you intend it admiringly or pejoratively; and, naturally, Caliph.
It now remains to be seen whether another moniker might be added to that growing list: Erdoğan as the “Francis Whisperer.”
