A trip to Kyiv, on the other hand, is out of the question for him at the moment, the Holy Father emphasized in an interview with Luciano Fontana, editor-in-chief of the Milan daily newspaper “Corriere della Sera” (Tuesday edition). “After 20 days of war, I (Vatican Secretary of State) asked Cardinal Pietro Parolin to convey the message to Putin that I am ready to go to Moscow. (…) We have not yet received an answer and are still waiting for it, although I am afraid that Putin cannot and will not come to this meeting at this time. But how else to stop such brutality?”
When asked if he was planning a trip to Ukraine, Pope Francis replied that he had sent two cardinals to Ukraine on fact-finding missions. “But I feel like I shouldn’t go to Ukraine. I have to go to Moscow first, I have to meet Putin first. But I’m also a priest, what can I do? I’ll do what I can. If Putin would open the door…”.
Pope Francis said he spoke to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril for 40 minutes via Zoom. “In the first 20 minutes he read me all the justifications for the war. I listened and said: ‘I don’t understand any of this. Brother, we are not clerics of the state, we cannot use the language of politics, but that of Jesus. We are shepherds of the same holy people of God. Therefore we must seek ways of peace and cease the fire of arms.’ A patriarch cannot become Putin’s acolyte.”
“I had arranged a meeting with Kyrill in Jerusalem for June 14 (2022). It would have been our second personal meeting, it would have had nothing to do with the war. But now even Kyrill agrees: ‘Let’s leave it alone, this meeting could be an ambiguous signal.’” Francis added.
The Pope stressed that when he met Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in April, Orban told him that the Russians wanted to end the war on May 9 (anniversary of Hitler’s Germany’s surrender in World War II). “I hope that’s the case, so you could understand the escalation these days. Because now it’s not just about Donbass, but also about Crimea, about Odessa, about taking away the port on the Black Sea from Ukraine. I’m a pessimist, but we must do everything we can to end the war,” the Pope said.
The head of the church said that he could not answer the question of whether it was right to supply the Ukrainians with weapons. “The only thing that is clear is that weapons are being tested in Ukraine. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking about other things. That’s why wars are fought: to test weapons that we produced. It was the same in Spanish Civil war that preceded World War II. The arms trade is a scandal that few fight,” the Pope said.
Source: Nachrichten
