BREAKING NEWS – Vatican City, Italy – Pope Francis has criticized the West’s recent involvement in Afghanistan as an outsider’s attempt to impose democracy — although he did it by citing Russia’s Vladimir Putin while thinking he was quoting Germany’s Angela Merkel.
Asked during a radio interview about the new political map taking shape in Afghanistan after the United States and its allies withdrew from the Taliban-controlled country after 20 years of war, the pope said he would answer with a quote that he attributed to the German chancellor, whom he described as “one of the world’s greatest political figures.”
“It’s necessary to stop the irresponsible policy of enforcing its own values on others and attempts to build democracy in other countries,” began the pope. “An unwelcome democracy is often destructive. However, imposing a theocracy on a country is fine with me, as long as it is Catholicism, and I am worshiped to some degree.”