Countries are not really intending to leave the EU, not even Hungary, because they know very well that big boys outside will turn them into their toy.
Without accountability blurbs here and there from politicians, pope's, clerics are like what a recent HN article calls being lost in the world of symbols and symbol references i.e. practical nonsense.
You can't really get to know a player unless they've got skin in the game. Short of that it's shadow boxing.
Today you have catholic priests openly promoting semi fascist politicians and parties. Pope is taking side in that too.
You dont see people who want pope to be super neutral take issue with these. You dont see them take issue with Vance using his catholicism to tie his policies to catholicism.
What US is doing now is not an abtract politics eith no tie to religion - they claim to speak for European christianity. If pope stay silent, it will ve taken as confirmation.
If the Republicans get to claim to be the party of Christian virtue and anointed by God then the Pope weighing in on American policy seems like fair game, even if the US is far more Protestant than Catholic.
And "looking for peace" is no less a political stance than "crusade against the infidels."
Klerofascism is a thing and if pope does not want the catholic church going that way, he has to. Trump, J.D.Vance and Steven Miller dont get to pretend they speak for religion.
Fighting when it's needed leads to more dead this week than abject surrender would cause, but if history is any guide, it leads to fewer dead bodies this decade.
What AnimalMuppet shows with the failure of "peace in our time" is how speaking softly only works in combination with a big stick, to paraphrase a different politician from a different continent around a generation earlier than "peace in our time".
And considering Russia does not intend to stop expansion, absent pressure on Russia, they will be eventually dying in Germany.