By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - “The Russian Orthodox Church has taken an active role in forging the ideology that undergirds Mr. Putin’s geopolitical ambitions,” reported the Wall Street Journal, in one of the rare media examinations of this key issue. “It is a worldview that holds the Kremlin to be the defender of Russia’s Christian civilization…” That Journal analysis went on to quote Vladimir Putin saying, just a few days before he launched his offensive, that Ukraine “is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”