How come they couldn’t seek help from the Pope?
The Pope does not have an army like he did back in the days when Italy from Florence to Naples was part of the Papal States. Russia has an army and is was the Russian Government under Putin that commenced military action against the ISIS mohammedans. It is probably more accurate to ask where is England, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, i.e. Nato in all this, as well as U.S.
I am not for putting American ground troops in Syria but U.S. airpower could have definitely been used, in my opinion.