Pope Leo Praises Turkey for Its Religious Tolerance

Pope Leo is fresh from visiting Turkey, where he praised the country for its religious tolerance. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople could in private have told him hair-raising stories about that “tolerance,” including the forced closure of the last Orthodox seminary in the country and the refusal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to allow it to reopen. The pope might have visited Hagia Sophia, for a thousand years the greatest church in Christendom, that the Ottomans had turned into a mosque, and Ataturk had turned into a museum in 1935, and Erdogan has again made into a mosque. The pope could in that place have made a public plea to Erdogan to turn it back into a church, putting him on the spot and reminding Christians worldwide of how Turkey now treats Christians. But he chose not to embarrass his malevolent host. At least the pope did not pray when visiting the Blue Mosque, as his hosts had hoped. More on his ignorant folly can be found here: “Pope Leo in Beirut: Palestinian state ‘only’ solution to Israeli conflict,” Reuters, November 30, 2025:

The pope said he and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed both the Israel-Palestinian and Ukraine-Russia conflicts. Turkey has an important role to play helping end both wars, Leo said.

Turkey, that has provided refuge for some Hamas leaders, and is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, cannot be regarded as a neutral intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians. Erdogan’s anti-Israel animus is on display in every speech he makes about the Middle East.

During his visit to Turkey, the pope warned that humanity’s future was at risk because of the world’s unusual number of bloody conflicts and condemned violence in the name of religion….

The pope might have said something about the situation of Christians worldwide, for they are the religious group most at risk for persecution and murder. Had he dared to do so, directly to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it would have reassured those Christians now under assault by Muslims in many parts of the world, that they have a champion in the Vatican, one who avoids interfaith pieties in describing their plight. Erdogan, remember, a few years ago had predicted a possible war between the Crescent and the Cross, and left no doubt as to which side he would be on, and not only that, he clearly saw himself as leading the forces of the Crescent. The Pope should show Erdogan that he, on the other hand, will defend the believers in the Cross against those who persecute them.

Turkey is predominantly Muslim but is also home to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.

Turkey is not “predominantly Muslim.” It is almost completely Muslim — 99%.

Leo praised Turkey as an example of religious co-existence.

That is a preposterous claim. What can the pope be thinking? What example of “religious co-existence” in Turkey is that? In 1900, 25% of the population of Turkey in its present boundaries was Christian; today, that number has fallen to 1% of the Turkish population. The genocide of the Armenians by Muslim Turks, who even today refuse to admit to that genocide, and the wholesale massacres of Greek Christians, help explain that precipitous decline in Turkey’s Christian population. Since coming to power, Erdogan has built tens of thousands of mosques and several thousand Imam Hatip state schools, that offer secular courses, but with a heavy dose of religious studies.

“People of different religions are able to live in peace,” said the pope. “That is one example of what I think we all would be looking for throughout the world.”

In Turkey, people “of different religions are able to live in peace”? in Turkey they “live in peace” only because 99% of Turks are Muslims, and the 1% who are Christians know not to make trouble, but to be suitably subservient to their Muslim rulers. They dared not protest, for example, when the last Greek Orthodox seminary was closed. Nor did they come out to protest against Hagia Sophia being turned again into a mosque. If the Pope thinks Erdogan’s Turkey is a model of a place where “different religions are able to live in peace,” he does not understand that it is a “peace of the grave,” a place where Armenian Christians have been subject to genocide, Greek Christians subject to massacres and, among the Pontic Greeks, forced expulsion, along with churches seized and either destroyed or turned into mosques, and Orthodox seminaries closed down.

There is only one place in the Middle East where Christians are secure, and where “people of different religions live in peace.” That place is Israel, the place that if the pope’s “only solution” to the “Palestinian” problem were to be imposed, would eventually disappear as a Jewish state. And in the 23rd Arab state that would be built on its ruins, Christians would be subject to Muslim contumely and violence, leading to another, final outflow, of Christians now living in the Holy Land, to Europe and North America.