The Pope! How many divisions has he got?
Source, in full
Said sarcastically to Pierre Laval in 1935, in response to being asked whether he could do anything with Russian Catholics to help Laval win favour with the Pope, to counter the increasing threat of Nazism; as quoted in The Second World War (1948) by Winston Churchill vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 105. Reported also in the 24 January 1946 diary entry of the U.S. Assistant Press Secretary Eban Ayers.