On Easter Monday, Pope Francis died at the age of 88. His passing marked the end of a 12-year papacy characterized by a commitment to the poor, an insistence on peace over posturing, and an often-controversial emphasis on mercy over rules. As white smoke issues from the Vatican–indicating a new pope has been chosen–most commentary has focused on familiar terrain: his views on women, LGBTQ+ rights, his political moderation, his Latin American identity, or his climate advocacy. But for all the ink spilled over Francis’s social teachings, one of the most strategically relevant elements of his papacy—and the institution he led—has gone largely unexamined: the Vatican’s role as a sprawling, informal, and profoundly underappreciated intelligence network.

The church listens, watches, embeds

This might sound like a stretch if your definition of intelligence relies on signals intelligence (SIGINT), satellites, or covert action. But the Roman Catholic Church does something else—and arguably something more effective in the long term. It listens. It watches. It embeds. Through its vast web of clergy, missionaries, lay workers, and bishops’ conferences—many operating in environments too opaque or dangerous for diplomats—the Roman Catholic Church receives early signals of political instability, community breakdown, and state violence. These observations are not the stuff of briefcases and burner phones. They are often gathered over tea in parish kitchens, whispered in the sacristy, or recorded in mission diaries. But they carry weight. And they move.

Sometimes, the actor best positioned to see the crisis coming is wearing a cassock, not a suit.

From those initial conversations, reports are filtered up through diocesan structures, across national bishops’ conferences, and eventually, when needed, to the Holy See’s diplomatic service. This global apparatus—formal in its structure, informal in its transmission—is often the first to notice a crack in the state’s façade: food shortages in northern Nigeria, unexplained disappearances in Honduras, restricted media in Nicaragua. The information flows aren’t just fast—they’re credible. In places where the U.S. is viewed with suspicion or simply lacks a presence, the church is often the last remaining institution with moral authority. For example, in Venezuela, reports from bishops on food insecurity and political violence during the 2013 Venezuelan Episcopal Conference were relayed to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State months before they appeared in foreign media (where coverage began in 2014). In Nicaragua, after the expulsion of international NGOs, priests’ homilies and pastoral letters became a primary source of information on local repression—some of which were later cited in State Department human rights briefings. These reports often move quietly: handwritten memos, encrypted WhatsApp messages, or diplomatic pouch transmissions that pass through nunciatures and end up on desks in Rome. That’s not a small thing. In a global order increasingly defined by asymmetrical information and mistrust, the church’s credibility is strategic capital.

To be clear, the Vatican has no intelligence agency in the traditional sense. But it doesn’t need one. The sheer scale and embeddedness of its global networks allow it to collect human intelligence on a level that even the best-funded national systems would find difficult to replicate. It has presence. It has local knowledge. It has access. And it has the one thing most foreign ministries lack: a sense of moral obligation to pay attention to the suffering of people who will never hold power. That obligation is not neutral, of course—it’s filtered through theology and institutional norms. But it generates a body of knowledge grounded in lived experience rather than algorithmic abstraction.

History’s quiet witness

There is historical precedent for this. During the Cold War, Vatican diplomats quietly passed along information about repression in Eastern Europe—often through unofficial channels and personal correspondence. The Polish Church, with tacit papal support, played a critical role in the resistance to communist rule. In Latin America, priests documented atrocities under military dictatorships and created safe spaces for political dissidents long before international NGOs were allowed in. Much of what we now know about the scale of political violence in Argentina’s Dirty War, or the torture chambers of Pinochet’s Chile, came from church records. In some cases, those records were smuggled to Rome and distributed via Vatican diplomatic pouches. In others, they were quietly handed over to sympathetic embassies—sometimes the U.S., often others. In either case, the church functioned not only as a moral witness, but as a geopolitical actor.

Francis the strategist

Francis inherited this tradition and updated it for the 21st century. His Latin American background helped him understand how power is wielded and withheld in fragile democracies. He emphasized the peripheries—socially, geographically, and politically—not just as a theological stance, but as a strategic posture. His Vatican engaged in quiet dialogue in Venezuela, extended diplomatic olive branches to China, and served as a neutral convening space for actors the U.S. could barely get in a room. His invitation to South Sudanese leaders to attend a spiritual retreat at the Vatican—where he famously knelt to kiss their feet—was not just dramatic. It was strategic theater in the service of diplomacy.

In a global order increasingly defined by asymmetrical information and mistrust, the Church’s credibility is strategic capital.

And yet, much of this has flown under the radar in Washington. U.S. foreign policy thinking tends to (but not exclusively) treat the church as either a cultural relic or a domestic wedge issue. Religious actors are seldom included in strategic planning or humanitarian early-warning systems. Analysts talk about China’s Belt and Road Initiative or Russia’s disinformation campaigns, but rarely about the Vatican’s ability to quietly build trust across decades and borders. Even in academic and think tank circles, the church’s global presence is often analyzed through the lens of doctrine, not soft power. That’s a mistake. Because now—with Francis gone—the future of this quiet intelligence apparatus hangs in the balance.

What comes next-and why it matters

The next pope could expand it, professionalize it, and deepen its ties to global humanitarian efforts. Or he could pull back, prioritize internal doctrinal battles, and retreat into theological fortress-building. A pope from the Global South might double down on moral diplomacy. A Eurocentric conservative might focus on liturgical reform and bureaucratic control. Either direction would reshape not just the church’s public witness, but its real-world influence. And that matters for the U.S. Because in places like the Sahel, Central America, or the DRC, the Vatican still has credibility the U.S. does not. Its actors are often the first to see humanitarian crises forming—and, if empowered, the first to intervene. That’s a resource. Not one to be manipulated, but one to be engaged with. Yet we have allowed Vatican expertise in the State Department to atrophy. Very few U.S. diplomats speak the language of ecclesial diplomacy. Fewer still understand the internal politics of bishops’ conferences. In many cases, there are simply no official channels at all.

The Vatican isn’t a perfect actor. It’s not immune to political compromise, institutional self-preservation, or moral blind spots. But it has capacity. It has a deep archive of experience in conflict mediation, post-authoritarian reconciliation, and civil society resilience. And in a century increasingly defined by legitimacy crises and trust gaps, that matters. The U.S. should invest—carefully—in rebuilding relationships with church networks, particularly in fragile states. That means training foreign service officers in religious literacy, funding interfaith diplomacy, and establishing backchannels that respect, rather than instrumentalize, the Vatican’s role. Ultimately, this is about more than one pope. It’s about recognizing that in global affairs, not all power flows through official channels. Sometimes, the actor best positioned to see the crisis coming is wearing a cassock, not a suit. And sometimes, the most important intelligence report is written in the margins of a parish ledger, not the top-secret briefing binder.

As the world waits to see who emerges under the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, it would be easy to focus on doctrine, demographics, or church attendance trends. But policymakers—and not just theologians—should be watching too. Because while the papacy is spiritual, it is never merely spiritual. The Vatican remains a moral superpower. And in an era where moral authority is in short supply, that may be the most strategic asset of all.