Papal Notes - Catholic / Shiite "Alliance"?

 ...and all the world wondered after the beast.

Revelation 13:3

"When Pope Francis makes a brief stop in the small Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan on Sunday, he has a chance not simply to

improve Catholic/Muslim relations generally but to exploit the possibility of a natural alliance with Shiite Muslims, the second largest branch of Islam.
In the other countries with a majority Muslim population Francis has visited so far - including Palestine, Jordan, Albania, Turkey, and Bosnia-Herzegovina - the Islamic community is dominated by Sunnis, and Shiites are either a distinct minority or practically non-existent.
In other words, the Azerbaijan stop is not simply about Catholic/Muslim relations, but more specifically about ties between Catholicism and Islam’s second largest branch, representing somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.

While Shiites are a clear minority in terms of Islam overall, they loom large in the all-important Persian Gulf region, and in Iran, they also dominate arguably one of the two or three most powerful and consequential Islamic nations in the world.
It will be fascinating to see if Pope Francis is able to move the ball on what many observers have long regarded as the potential for a natural Catholic/Shiite alliance."
CRUX