Pope inadvertently quotes Putin to chide West’s Afghan war

MADRID (AP) — Pope Francis criticized the West’s caller engagement successful Afghanistan arsenic an outsider’s effort to enforce ideology — though helium did it by citing Russia’s Vladimir Putin portion reasoning helium was quoting Germany’s Angela Merkel. Asked during a vigor interrogation astir the caller governmental representation taking signifier successful Afghanistan aft the United States and its allies withdrew from the Taliban-controlled state aft 20 years of war, the pope said helium would reply utilizing a punctuation that helium attributed to the German chancellor. But the words were spoken past period by the Russian president successful the beingness of Merkel, during her sojourn to Moscow. Francis called for Christians crossed the satellite to prosecute successful “prayer, penance and fasting” for Afghanistan.