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Pope Francis will meet with the President of Ukraine

Pope Francis will meet with the President of Ukraine

Zelensky will see the Pope on Saturday afternoon, after Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin this week suggested that the mission to stop the war in Ukraine announced by the pontiff “will go ahead” and will reveal that “there are news”but which are of a “reserved nature”.

The meeting will take place in a small room in the Paul VI hall, where the pontiff already received other heads of state such as the Cuban Raúl Castro and the Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, added the sources.

It will be the Pope’s first meeting with Zelenski, who until now had communicated twice by phone, while he never made contact with Vladimir Putin, Russian president.

On several occasions, the Supreme Pontiff insisted with a call for peace in Ukraine: “Help the beloved Ukrainian people – Francis prayed in Urbi et Orbi – on his way to peace, and illuminate the Russian people with the paschal light. He comforts the wounded and those who lost their families because of the war and make sure that the prisoners can return safely to their families.”

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Pope Francisco

Pope meetings with Russian and Ukrainian officials

In April, Francisco received the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhalin what was the first bilateral meeting between the Vatican and Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022.

The meeting lasted half an hour and took place in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace, where Francis gave the Ukrainian official a sculpture with the legend “Peace is a fragile flower,” sources from the Holy See told Télam.

And in May, the Supreme Pontiff established the first face-to-face contact with Russia: met with the “chancellor” of the Russian ChurchMetropolitan Antonio, in charge of external ecclesiastical relations of the Russian Orthodox Church headed by Patriarch Kirill (or Cyril), who is very close to Putin, They greeted and spoke briefly with the Pope in Saint Peter’s Square in view of the thousands of faithful who participated in the traditional General Audience.

Prior to this meeting, in which “various topics” were discussedAccording to Antonio, the pontiff had met in Budapest with the predecessor of the metropolitan, Hilarion, removed from office last year due to his disagreements with the war in Ukraine.

Source: Ambito

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