When Religious Authority Becomes Actionable: Message–Carrier–Audience Alignment in the Holy See and the Najaf Marjaʿiyya

Mahmoudi, Abdolreza; Mahmoudi, Mohammad Sadegh

doi:10.22059/jcis.2026.416337.1486

When Religious Authority Becomes Actionable: Message–Carrier–Audience Alignment in the Holy See and the Najaf Marjaʿiyya

Articles in Press

Document Type : Scholary

Authors

Abdolreza Mahmoudi ¹

Mohammad Sadegh Mahmoudi ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran

² Ph.D Candidate in Political Science, Department of Political Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

10.22059/jcis.2026.416337.1486

Abstract

Religious authority is often invoked in crisis, yet its political effects are uneven. Some messages remain symbolic; others enter diplomacy, mobilisation, restraint, or pressure on governing elites. This article asks how message–carrier–audience alignment enables a message from religious leadership to become an observable political output. It argues that religious authority becomes actionable when a practically directed message, a recognised institutional carrier, and an audience able to respond align under crisis conditions. The argument is examined through qualitative process tracing across four episodes: the Holy See in U.S.–Cuba rapprochement and the Ukraine war, and the Najaf Marjaʿiyya in Iraq’s 2014 mobilisation crisis and the 2019 Tishreen protests. The comparison suggests that carrier form shapes output: legal-diplomatic channels favour elite and humanitarian translation, while juristic-social channels work through duty, restraint, mobilisation, and pressure. Religious authority, then, becomes consequential through fit, clarity, and usable capacity.

Keywords

Religious authority

Holy See

Najaf

political translation

religious soft power

Subjects