A respected Italian reporter who has covered the Vatican for more than 40 years made an assertion that would have astounded Catholics around the world as little as five years ago.

“The battles that Pope Francis has given up fighting are those in defense of the unborn, of the Christian vision of procreation and the family,” Sandro Magister wrote Sept. 12 on his blog. “Of course, he does not fail to condemn abortion or gender ideology, sometimes with words even cruder – “hitmen,” “murderers” – than those of his predecessors, but these condemnations of his get very little media coverage, and it is as if he reconciles himself to this silence.”

Magister’s basic thrust is right but he misses two big points.

First, such major outlets as Associated Press and Reuters have covered Francis’ critical remarks. More importantly, surrender means nothing when the capitulating side never chose to fight seriously in the first place.

As those who follow FrontPage Magazine’s coverage of this pope know, Francis has no interest in preserving, let alone defending, historic teaching on abortion, marriage and sexuality. Instead, he uses his words as cover for a long campaign to sabotage that teaching subtly and through others.

But why? Because Francis, as FrontPage also reported, is committed to the papacy’s globalist vision of materialist utopia, a vision the Second Vatican Council forged and ensuing papal encyclicals amplified. The United Nations’ Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals express that vision — which leaves no room for traditional Catholic teaching, despite the Vatican’s public commitment to both programs.

Look at gender theory. Though Francis calls it “ideological colonization,” nobody fights it by promoting and supporting clerics who promote it. The most prominent include The Rev. James Martin, a papal communications advisor. Martin, a fellow Jesuit, not only uses his social platforms to advocate LGBTQ ideology. He publicly opposes biblical views on homosexuality, as FrontPage often reported.

Nobody fights gender theory by appointing to a group of papal advisors a cardinal who states that Catholic teaching on homosexuality is wrong. Yet Francis did just that when he selected Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, as FrontPage reported.

Nobody fights gender theory by staying silent when a major American Cardinal, San Diego’s Robert McElroy, demands “radical inclusion” for LGBTQ Catholics, regardless of their sexual behavior or their adherence to church teaching on homosexuality, which demands abstinence. Nobody fights by staying silent when another American prelate, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., responds by calling McElroy a heretic unfit for church office, as FrontPage reported.

Nobody fights gender theory by promoting a minor Italian prelate, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who commissioned a homoerotic painting for his cathedral. That painting included a scene of the semi-nude Paglia embracing a semi-nude male, as FrontPage reported.

Now look at abortion. Though Francis equates procuring one to “hiring a hitman,” nobody fights it by staying silent when the head of a pontifical body created to oppose it — the aforementioned Paglia — calls a 45-year-old Italian law permitting it under certain conditions “a pillar of our social life,” as FrontPage reported.

Nobody fights abortion by encouraging American prelates to violate both the Catholic catechism and canon law by giving communion to Catholic politicians who support legalized abortion — such as Joe Biden, America’s virtual president, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House. But the former head of the Vatican’s highest theological body did just that in 2021, as FrontPage reported.

Nobody fights abortion by honoring those who promote it. But Francis did just that by calling Emma Bonino, a former member of the Italian and European parliaments, “among the greats of today’s Italy.” Bonino performed illegal abortions and supported its legalization in Italy, as FrontPage reported.

Nobody fights abortion by appointing an internationally known advocate as a papal advisor. Yet Francis did just that by making Columbia Professor Jeffrey Sachs his environmental consultant. Sachs, an economist who wrote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, also wrote a book advocating abortion to control population, as FrontPage reported.

That appointment exposes Francis’ true priorities.

Since replacing Pope Benedict XVI in 2013, Francis has made environmental sustainability and economic redistribution the hallmarks of his tenure, as FrontPage often reported. After publishing his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, in May 2015, Francis aggressively pursued his utopian globalist agenda.

Four months after that encyclical, Francis told the UN’s General Assembly that Agenda 2030, which the UN adopted that June, “is an important sign of hope,” and that the Paris Conference on Climate Change “will secure fundamental and effective agreements.” In 2019, Francis said, “the nation-state cannot be considered as an absolute” and must yield to a “specific, legally and concordantly constituted authority” to ensure “a supranatural common good.”

In April 2020, the Vatican released a letter in which Francis advocated a universal basic wage so the poor could enjoy “the benefits of globalism.” That October, Francis wrote his encyclical on economics, Fratelli Tutti. Two months later, he helped create the Council for Inclusive Capitalism “to harness the potential of the private sector to build a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable economic foundation for the world,” as the group’s website stated.

In May 2021, three projects dominated the agenda. First came a conference on health care and COVID-19. Speakers included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, known for “initiatives to create a sustainable, low-carbon future for all.” Benioff discussed “how businesses can drive sustainable financial performance while equitably serving the needs of all stakeholders.”

Benioff also belongs to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees.

Also speaking was Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, on “Building a More Equitable Health Care System for All.” Despite her outspoken support for abortion, Francis has forged an alliance with the Clintons, which became obvious this year.

Next followed a one-day conference, “Dreaming of a Better Restart,” on economic and environmental issues. The first part addressed cancelling foreign debt, with Sachs as a speaker. The second part discussed modifying food and energy production to reduce global warming. Among the speakers was John Kerry, the Biden Administration’s climate envoy.

Eleven days later, Francis announced the Laudato Si Platform, a seven-year campaign to implement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Francis described it as part of a broader effort toward what he called “green economics,” “green education” and “green spirituality.”

In July, Francis privately met former President Bill Clinton and George Soros’ son Alexander at the Vatican, as FrontPage reported. Alexander Soros replaced his father as chairman of the Open Society Foundations. In September, the pope addressed climate issues as the keynote speaker for the Clinton Global Initiative’s two-day conference, held during the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Summit.

But by trying to save humanity through Agenda 2030, Francis risks destroying Catholicism.

The UN’s goal of “Gender Equality” contradicts historic Catholic teaching on abortion, birth control and homosexuality. The six targets for meeting that goal include securing “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.” That would involve encouraging “adolescent girls and young women aged 15-19” to “make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care.”

Moreover, the UN created an “LGBTI Inclusion Index” as part of Agenda 2030. The index would “measure development outcomes for LGBTI people and inform policies, programs and investments for strengthening LGBTI inclusion and rights.”

Yet Francis’ support for Agenda 2030 contains ramifications that extend far beyond Catholic teaching.

The Council on Inclusive Capitalism’s emphasis on equity, sustainability and transparent governance (ESG) fits Klaus Schwab’s goals of using “the top-down power of the public-private partnerships to force ESG in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals into the corporate world, into the institutional world, into the nonprofit world,” said James Lindsay, a cultural critic who opposes the “woke” ideology Schwab and his World Economic Forum promote.

Perhaps the most ominous implications concern the UN’s first two goals: “No Poverty” and “Zero Hunger.”

Agenda 2030 wants to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” and to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate, as FrontPage reported, mentioned food security as one of the objectives of “a true world political authority” that would “establish the common good,” he wrote.

But if sustainable agriculture means prohibiting nitrogen fertilizers or any methods that cause carbon emissions, Lindsay foresees disaster.

“It means people are going to starve,” he said. “You can’t have food security and sustainable agriculture, at least not under the present population. Somehow, they’re going cut back on lots of agriculture to make it sustainable but somehow achieve food security for all 8 billion-plus people on the planet.” (emphasis added)

For Lindsay, the implications are obvious.

“It’s going to be an excuse for grabbing tons of power to redistribute wealth according to their designs,” he said. “It’s going to be another excuse to impoverish all of the world except for the technocratic elite, the stakeholders who are going to run this show, as a kind of oligarchy of experts who know how to run everything.”

Note well that in Caritas in Veritate, Benedict’s hypothetical “world political authority” would harness globalization to “open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale,” he wrote.

But unlike the late pope, Linsday views such a hypothetical body as dangerous, especially given the UN’s goal of creating a digital ID connected to bank accounts and payment platforms, as FrontPage reported.

“This is meant to be a sustainable regime,” Lindsay said. “That’s what ‘sustainability’ really means: not just a sustainable economy or a sustainable capitalism, but in fact a sustainable regime that can’t be deposed.”

So by aligning the Vatican with Agenda 2030, thus culminating six decades of papal policy, Francis risks turning the Catholic Church not just into a globalist tool. He risks making it an accessory of potentially the most repressive form of governance in human history.