Papal diplomacy frames Spain’s militarized neutrality as moral leadership amid global crises, obscuring colonial legacies and migrant exploitation
Original framing: “Pope Leo XIV praises Spain for its stance on Gaza, Iran, and Ukraine” — Africa News
Spain’s current foreign policy is a direct descendant of its colonial empire, which historically exploited Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East under the guise of Christian mission. The Vatican’s alignment with Spain today mirrors its historical role in legitimizing conquest (e.g., the *Requerimiento* of 1513), where moral authority was used to justify violence. The selective humanitarianism praised by the Pope echoes 19th-century European interventions in the Ottoman Empire, where Western powers claimed moral superiority while carving up territories for their own interests.
The Pope’s praise for Spain is not an isolated diplomatic gesture but a symptom of a global system where Western states are rewarded for performative humanitarianism while perpetuating the very conflicts they claim to address.
This narrative is produced by institutions (Vatican, EU, NATO) that benefit from the status quo, obscuring their historical complicity in colonialism and contemporary roles in arms sales and border militarization. Indigenous and African epistemologies reveal this as a continuation of colonial logics, where moral authority is weaponized to silence structural critique. A systemic solution requires dismantling the hypocrisy at the heart of Western diplomacy—whether through decolonizing religious institutions, abolishing militarized borders, or enforcing arms embargos—while centering the voices of those most impacted by these policies. The trickster’s laughter is essential here: it exposes the absurdity of a Pope praising a state that arms its enemies, forcing a reckoning with the contradictions that solemn narratives conceal.