RELIGION was supposed to matter less by now.

That, at least, was one of the confident predictions of modernity. As societies became richer and better educated, faith would retreat into private life. Politics would become more secular. Religion would gradually lose its place in international affairs.

Almost a decade ago now, I came across a book that argued the story was not turning out quite as expected.

Holy Wars and Holy Alliance, by Manlio Graziano, the Italian scholar of geopolitics at the Sorbonne in Paris, examined the return of religion to the global political stage.

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Religion had not disappeared. It was once again shaping politics and national identity in ways the old story of secularisation had failed to anticipate.

Graziano was not talking simply about Christianity. Islam was an obvious part of the story, alongside other religious traditions exerting political influence of their own. Religion had returned as a force in world affairs – sometimes for good, sometimes with dangerous consequences.

Within that larger story, however, Graziano saw something distinctive about Catholicism.

The Catholic Church has almost no territory and no army, yet remains one of the few genuinely global institutions. It belongs fully to no political bloc. Its structures span borders and cultures, while its diplomatic network reaches across much of the world.

It has few of the conventional instruments of power, but an unusual capacity to speak across them.

Nearly a decade later, I have found myself thinking about Graziano again. And the reason is Pope Leo XIV.

The world into which Leo was elected is becoming more fractured. War has returned to Europe,........

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