As an atheist, I have been about to puke when reading, for example, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Daily Mail, BBC, TMZ and, then, tons of Czech press when the old Pope died and a new one was elected. According to surveys, more than 70% of Czechs identify as non-religious, atheist, or agnostic. Churches remain largely empty, and most people view religion as a private or outdated matter rather than a source of moral authority. So why the hell should we really care about the Pope?
The media was full of it, just like the world’s most powerful leader had been elected. So why the hell we really should care about the Pope?
Too much money, too much power
I have never seen the Vatican as a spiritual institution. People believe the Pope is a humble priest in white robes, but he is one of the most powerful unelected figures in the world. He does not rule a religion. He leads a state. A sovereign state with embassies, spies, and global reach. The Vatican talks about morals but plays politics behind velvet curtains. It helped take down communism in Eastern Europe. It still influences immigration laws, peace negotiations, and social policy—without anyone voting for it. The Pope does not represent the people. He represents an empire that survived every century by hiding its true role. No other religious group holds this kind of global power. No other institution mixes faith with control in such a refined and protected way.
Its money tells the rest of the story. The Vatican Bank has been involved in scandals for decades—money laundering, secret accounts, mafia links, corruption cases hushed up or dismissed. But that is just the surface. The Church owns real estate across continents. It controls land in cities where property prices crush middle-class families. It has investments in banking, energy, media, and even insurance.
We should not care about the Pope: He acts like Goldman Sachs
It never shows balance sheets, it never reveals how much it really owns. It preaches to the poor while cashing checks from the rich. I do not see anything sacred in this structure. The Vatican speaks about grace, but it operates like Goldman Sachs wrapped in incense. Except Goldman Sachs does not pretend to save your soul. The Vatican plays both games—finance and faith—and shields itself from criticism with holy symbols and ancient rituals. Its fortune is untouchable, and its economic role is far greater than most nations.
But what really chills me is the secrecy. The Jesuits act like a covert organization. Some cardinals behave like elite diplomats. Historical documents point to ties with Freemasons, intelligence services, and shadow networks. The Vatican helped Nazi war criminals escape to South America. It remained silent during genocides. It protected its own while others were slaughtered, it moved quietly during the Cold War, sending signals without leaving fingerprints. And it never takes full responsibility. It always plays both sides. This is not a church that prays and heals. It is a power structure. It rules with soft power, old money, and invisible influence. And people still bow to it. They still think it is about faith. They still believe it speaks for God. But what I see is an empire—strategic, disciplined, and utterly untouchable.
They were killing and torturing
For centuries, the Catholic Church stood as one of the most repressive forces against intellectual freedom. It executed scientists, burned books, and silenced anyone who challenged its authority. Giordano Bruno was burned alive for claiming the universe had no center and that stars might be distant suns. Galileo was forced to renounce his findings under threat of torture, spending the rest of his life under house arrest. The Church labeled reason as dangerous. It banned translations of the Bible, it hunted heretics who questioned dogma.
And it tortured philosophers, imprisoned critics, and turned ideas into crimes. Freethinkers, writers, and reformers were chased across borders. In Catholic-controlled regions, universities were watched, publishing was censored, and intellectuals lived in fear. Questioning religious dogma meant risking your life. Progress had to hide. Rational thought was whispered, not shouted. Even basic studies like anatomy or astronomy had to pass through theological approval. For a thousand years, the Church worked to freeze time—to keep people ignorant, obedient, and afraid.
Outdated moral system
Nobody asks to get right into total utilitarianism or other analytic philosophy moral systems. The Church is self-appointed moral guardian. But a guardian of what?
The Bronze Age myths offer nothing but twisted and evil morality. With beliefs not discovered but plagiarized, it takes you to pure animalistic morality.
We guard our family because of genetic relatedness, should be honest in altruistic relationships, we defend our territory, are extremely selfish (this is seen on Freethinkers International where my rich and well-educated readers go). We have authorities (submissive-dominant relationships we inherited from simians). The Pope is the ultimate dominant primate.
No support of medical progress, no justice in how individuals will live their lives (some people live in heaven, some in hell).
We are judged by the primitive belief that there is free will. But there isn’t. So why should we be judged?
People are programmed by selfish genes that are passed on to their offspring. And competing? It is a part of it!
Stocks, jobs, mating partners, job promotion, admission to school, reputation, influence, recognition, sports achievements, real estate, market expansion, and so on.
People don’t care if anyone is being tortured, suffers from extreme hunger, has no basic medical care. Just Ten Commandments.
Now we should care about the Pope: A change has occurred
Yet Europe still gave birth to the Industrial Revolution. That contradiction speaks volumes. The Church tried to block progress, but it failed to control everything. Protestant regions began to break away, especially after the Reformation. In Northern Europe, especially in the Netherlands, England, and later Prussia, the Church’s grip loosened. Scientific academies emerged. Trade grew. New forms of governance encouraged invention and tolerated dissent. In these places, religion still existed—but it no longer dictated what could be known. Even in Catholic countries, small spaces of resistance developed—underground circles of thinkers, bold publishers, protected nobles.
The Enlightenment chipped away at Church power. The Inquisition lost its reach. Political elites began to see knowledge as a tool, not a threat. So while the Church tried to suppress thought, Europe’s diversity made complete repression impossible. Some kings still needed engineers more than priests. Some cities wanted wealth more than obedience. That tension—between control and curiosity—gave rise to slow, uneven progress.
Proudly no human rights
The Church never stopped resisting change. Even during industrialization, it condemned liberalism, modern science, and human rights. Popes issued edicts attacking freedom of speech, religious tolerance, and secular education. Catholic doctrine remained hostile to evolution, psychology, and capitalism. It preferred medieval hierarchy over democratic change. But it was no longer powerful enough to crush everything. Its prisons still opened, but its chains were shorter.
In Catholic countries like France and Italy, secular movements clashed with clergy-backed monarchies. In Spain and Austria, industrial and scientific growth lagged behind Protestant neighbors. But even then, the Church had to retreat from direct control. It lost lands, it lost states. It lost the monopoly on truth. The Industrial Revolution did not happen because of the Church—it happened in spite of it. Because human minds never fully obey. Some voices always refuse to be silenced. And over time, the chains rust. The Church could burn books and bodies, but it could not stop the mind from imagining a better world.
Now we should really not care about the Pope. Atheist Czechs regard him as a celebrity
Even if you are a strong believer, this man (by the way, not a woman) is a clownish figure, power-obsessed, placed in extremely complex patron-client relationships, ridden with political competition.
And guess what? There is an infinite number of churches that need to be repaired. And they all belong to the Vatican. And who really cares? Definitely not the Pope or Vatican. Maybe the local town, village or city.
Welcome in modern times, not the Bronze Age
If media were rational and moral (and they are not in either case), the man should receive no attention. This despicable immoral man welcomes us to – at best – Middle Ages, but the Bronze Age fulfills this criterion better.
We should care about the Pope – if?
Massive monetary and wealth redistribution from the families that have hundreds of trillions of dollars should occur. We have an infinite number of genes that if they were edited, there would be less cancer and less mental retardation. And there would be individuals with super-high IQs
He should be for a global education system, placing the brightest minds where they belong, banning lobbyists (but he is a lobbyist himself). If the Pope were for a clientelism-free world, Vatican would collapse as a house of cards.
He would promote right to work, right to have decent housing, right to have adequate money.
Please don’t care about the Pope
Don’t give legitimacy to primitive Bronze Age myths, selfishness, cult of personality, hierarchy-led society. He shouldn’t be shown at all. But people and media possess a deeply flawed moral compass, low intelligence respectively.
We need to be free of clientelism and the Pope is connected to the shadow world that rules us. If we want to progress with AI, robotics and last but not least morality, the Pope is not really the person to establish.
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