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The statement “come on, boys, shake hands and understand each other” ignores the fact that Russia is the clear antagonist and Ukraine is the victim.
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April 22, 2022 • 4 minutes ago • 5 minutes reading • 134 comments Pope Francis condemned barbarism against Ukrainians during the invasion and alluded to Russia and President Vladimir Putin as aggressors, but did not mention them by name. Photo by Titian Fabi / AFP via Getty Images
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Pope Francis did not lack kind words for the besieged people of Ukraine. He condemned the “cruel and senseless” war inflicted on them, blamed the invasion on an unnamed “potentate” and prayed for peace.
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The situation is directly related to his flock, after all, the pontiff is the spiritual leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, including its 130,000 Canadian members.
But two events in the midst of last week’s traditional Easter celebrations left ethnic Ukrainians around the world suddenly outraged by the pope and raised questions about whether a neutral call for peace was appropriate amid an unprovoked aggressive war.
Francis’s relations with the Ukrainians were “shaken to the core”, in particular by the Vatican’s procession on the Way of the Cross through the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday, critics say.
The church forced a Ukrainian and a Russian woman to hold the cross during the procession, accompanied by a text emphasizing peace and reconciliation between nations, but not mentioning who started the war and persecuting it so brutally.
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It was a “come on, boys, shake hands and understand” statement that ignores the fact that Russia is the clear antagonist and Ukraine is the victim of a conflict that is still raging, said Rev. Michael Kwiatkowski, chancellor of the Ukrainian Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg. . He called the affair “discouraging.”
“Ukrainians did not want to hear a less supportive voice from the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church,” he said. “They were seriously hurt that the Holy Father would preside over a world prayer event that could call into question what is really happening in Ukrainian cities and towns.
Ukrainian and Russian woman carry a cross together during Good Friday procession at the Colosseum in Rome, April 15, 2022. Photo by Handout / Vatican Media via Reuters
Then, on the same day, the Vatican ambassador to Kyiv and a cardinal from Poland met with the main Ukrainian leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, which acted as a spiritual cheerleader for the invasion.
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As a result, the future of the Ukrainian Catholic Church – an autonomous group that sees the pope as its main head – could even be threatened, according to a Canadian academic and member of the church.
“It’s painful to do this on Easter,” said Lubomir Luchuk, a professor of political geography at the Royal Military College. “I understand he is the pope, he must preach peace, he must preach reconciliation. But this is a war that the Ukrainians have not started and is happening right now. People have been killed, people have been raped, people have been forced to leave their homes … The time is not right. ”
Most religious Ukrainians follow the Julian calendar, which means that Sunday, April 24 is their Easter.
A spokesman for the papal nuncio to Canada, the Vatican’s ambassador here, could not be reached for comment.
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But Father Antonio Spadaro, a Jesuit priest and editor of La Civiltà Cattolica magazine, strongly defended the pontiff in an Italian newspaper, stressing that the pope viewed war through the “language of Jesus,” which means loving your enemy and praying for your persecutors. .
“One thing must be understood: Francis is not a politician, he is a pastor,” Spadaro wrote in the manifesto.
“Francis is acting according to the evangelical spirit, which is a spirit of reconciliation even against any visible hope during this war of aggression,” he said. “His main interest is not geopolitics, but – as he said three days after the outbreak of the war -” ordinary people who want peace and who in every conflict are the real victims who pay for the nonsense of war with their own skin. “”
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Yet a week later, the incidents left a lasting bad taste in some Ukrainians and their supporters.
The pope is rightly considered a peacemaker, but peace without justice is an insult to the victims, said Mikhail Vinitsky, a native of Waterloo, Ontario, a professor of sociology at the elite Ukrainian National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
“We interpret it as the equivalent of the rapist and the victim having to reconcile,” he said. “The rapist must first repent. Failure to do so will perpetuate an injustice. ”
At the heart of the most recent controversy is the pope’s overall account of Moscow’s invasion. He condemned his barbarism towards Ukrainians and alluded to Russia and President Vladimir Putin as aggressors, but never mentioned them by name.
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Then came the events of Good Friday, the most important procession on the Way of the Cross, designed to commemorate Jesus’ walk to the crucifixion. The two women – a Russian and a Ukrainian – were friends who worked at a hospital in Rome. The text that was to accompany their participation asked God to “teach us to be peacemakers, brothers and sisters”, again not mentioning which nation or country started the conflict.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, caught the plan ahead and protested, calling it untimely, ambiguous, inconsistent and “even offensive” to its members.
Most of the text was left out of the ceremony, but the two women still held their waists and arms.
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We interpret it as the equivalent of the rapist and the victim having to reconcile
On the same day, the Papal Nuncio to Ukraine and Catholic Cardinal Konrad Krajewski of Poland paid an official visit to Metropolitan Paul of Vyshhorod and Chernobyl, the de facto head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Its leader in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill, is a staunch supporter of the war and, according to some, provides its ideological basis: the idea that Ukraine is simply part of a united Orthodox nation with Belarus and Russia is a just battle between Western decline and traditional values.
The Russian Church posted a photo of the three clerics on its website, citing the pope’s spokesman, who condemned “restrictive actions” against each church during the conflict.
Wynnyckyj said the events of Good Friday were widely perceived as a “slap in the face of Ukrainians” in the name of contact with Russian religious leaders deeply involved in Putin’s military efforts.
It is reminiscent of Pope Pius XII, who has drawn criticism for maintaining the Vatican’s neutrality during World War II and the Holocaust, he said.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches have begun early talks on a possible merger. If Pope Francis hoped that a potential united church would fall under the Catholic flag, he has now taken a “massive step in the wrong direction,” Vinicki said.
• Email: tblackwell@postmedia.com | Twitter: tomblackwellNP
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