Uhhh… They have kind of absurd political power. The Vatican is essentially the decision making body of something a close to an international political business with a history of teaming up with governments to support initiatives.
Like look at the genocidal regime of residential schools in Canada. While they were a government initiative 2/3 of them were run directly by the Catholic church.
Political power doesn’t always mean strictly “interfaces directly with official government” either. Politics is the web of citizen buy in to how the world should be run. The Catholic Church is incredibly influential on citizens many of whom take the directives of the church and translate it into agency in a multitude of ways. It’s not a perfect control but it’s certainly used to shape the political landscape the world over.
I get what you are saying but at the same time as a Canadian that comes across as more American-centric myopia.
We are a small country in terms of people with only nominally more people than the state of California spread out over a landmass 1.6% larger than the US. Our energy infrastructure doesn’t fully connect through our own country and due to American strong arming a lot of our manufacturing industry is not super robust. It’s the Goose next to the Eagle. We’re tough enough to defend ourselves and make it hurt to attack us but we aren’t getting anything out of this fight. For us it’s a fight for our lives not a fight we can profit off of. Whatever wounds we take in this fight will soften us up for the regular problems we fight. The forest fires that have become exponentially worse through climate change that have erased entire cities off our map. The healthcare crisis of a mass of retiring boomers needing more care in a system that has constantly under fire from Americanizing rhetoric that has caused disinvestment from an ethically better system. The protectionist rhetoric that comes with conflict which will erode the systems of government and create legal precedent for more autocratic means of operation that will need to be later undone. The pausing of reconciliation efforts with indigenous nations. This conflict, even as it is now, will cause real trackable losses of life and livelihood some of which will not come back.
Our existence and future as a sovereign nation is threatened but nope “The US will be the real victims of this”? Bloody fucking tonedeaf mate.