Pope harshly condemns situation in Ukraine: "Certain actions can never, ever be justified!""Ukraine suffers and deserves peace," says Pope on Day of PrayerPope Francis' October 2, 2022 speech was a very studied text, diplomatic and calibrated in every word, aimed precisely at highlighting the gravity of the situation. We do not know what prompted the Pope to make such an appeal, whether it was the new nuclear threat or the situation after the Russian annexations of Donetsk. Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and Putin's speech, which has raised the specter of the nuclear threat.
However, we know that Pope Francis' words came at the culmination of a major diplomatic effort by the Holy See, which has worked tirelessly behind the scenes since the beginning of the conflict.
Speech of Pope Francis
Pope Francis chose to speak during the Angelus prayer. The appeal for an end to the war in Ukraine was made instead of the Gospel commentary that usually precedes the Angelus prayer. Only one other time had this happened: on September 1, 2013, when the Pope addressed the war in Syria and launched the day of prayer and fasting for peace on the following September 7.
The risk, in making this choice, was to give the Pope's speech a purely political-diplomatic connotation, without anchoring it in the Gospel, as all the Pope's speeches usually are. As has been said, this has only happened on one other occasion. It is a sign that the situation for the Pope is tragic.
In the speech, Pope Francis stressed that "certain actions can never be justified," and said that it is "distressing that the world is learning the geography of Ukraine through such names as Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Zaporizhzhia and other places, which have become places of indescribable suffering and fear." And what about the fact that mankind will again face the atomic threat? It is absurd."
Clearly, the Pope thus stigmatized the mass killings and evidence of torture found at these sites.
For this reason, Pope Francis first addressed the President of the Russian Federation "begging him to stop, also out of love for his people, this spiral of violence and death."
The Pope also appealed to the President of Ukraine to be "open to serious proposals for peace."
This is not a request to the Ukrainian president to accept the invasion. The important detail is that he be open to "serious" peace proposals. For the Holy See, "serious peace proposals" should be understood as peace proposals that do not touch the territorial integrity of Ukraine, that put an end to the trickle of war, that restore balance in the region.
Dialogue with the Russian Federation
The Holy See has never ceased dialogue with the Russian Federation. Pope Francis has made it known on several occasions that he is willing to go to Moscow. On February 25, when the war had only just begun, he decided, in an unconventional way, to visit the Russian Federation's embassy in the Holy See, seeking a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an open "window", as the Pope himself pointed out.
This "little window" was never opened. However, the dialogue remained constant. Cardinal Pietro Parolin had a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on March 8, 2022, and met with him on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, during the conversation Lavrov "would explain the reasons for the current crisis in relations between Russia and the West, resulting from NATO's 'crusade' to destroy Russia and divide the world." The Foreign Ministry also stressed that "the measures taken by our country are aimed at ensuring independence and security, as well as countering the hegemonic aspirations of the United States to control all global processes."
On that occasion, referendums were also discussed, which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, "are the realization of the legitimate rights of the inhabitants of these territories to self-determination and to organize their lives according to their own civil, cultural and religious traditions."
Obviously, this is only the Russian version of the story. The Holy See has not made any official communication. However, it is known that it was Cardinal Parolin who requested the meeting.
The meeting revealed not only a complicated situation, but also the absolute difficulty (not to say impossibility) of involving the Russians in a peace negotiation. Hence, probably, the Angelus of Pope Francis nuanced in its details. As if he was aware that the Holy See cannot be a mediating force.
Mediation by the Holy See to end the war?
It cannot be because a mediation, in order to bear fruit, must be desired by both sides. However, at the moment, it does not seem that Russia is willing to mediate. Even a recent interview with Metropolitan Antonij, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Relations, showed that Russia and the Holy See do not seem to be that close.
For the moment, relations between the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate are frozen," Antonij told the Russian news agency Interfax. For all the talk of an ecumenical relationship, this relationship also has political repercussions, especially in the way the Moscow Patriarchate is inextricably linked to the presidency of the Russian Federation.
These are very different times from those of June, when it was the Russian government agency Ria Novosti that broke the news that the Russian Federation supported the mediation of the Holy See in the resolution of the war in Ukraine. It did so by reporting the statements of Alexei Paramonov, head of the first European department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, who had noted, in a very significant change of tone, that "the Vatican leadership has repeatedly declared its readiness to render all possible assistance in bringing about peace and halting hostilities in Ukraine." These remarks are confirmed in practice. We maintain an open and trusting dialogue on a number of issues, primarily related to the humanitarian situation in Ukraine."
What has changed between June and today? First of all, the course of the war has changed, and therefore also the willingness to negotiate. And then, the commitment of the Holy See has changed. That, on the diplomatic level, always starts from an inescapable point: respect for Ukrainian territorial integrity.
Ukrainian territorial integrity
Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican's "foreign minister," had called for "resisting the temptation to compromise Ukrainian territorial integrity" on the sidelines of a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University on June 14.
Gallagher had visited Ukraine between May 18 and 21, and during that trip stressed that the Holy See "defends Ukrainian territorial integrity."
Obviously, for the Holy See a negotiated solution is necessary, not a military one.
As a Church, Gallagher said, "we must work for peace and also emphasize the ecumenical dimension." In addition, we must resist the temptation to compromise the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We must use this," that of territoriality, "as a principle of peace. Let us hope that we will soon be able to start negotiations for a peaceful future."
Pope Francis' gesture must therefore be understood in this diplomatic framework. The territorial integrity of Ukraine is not in question. Just as the Holy See's judgment on the war is not in question. Suffice it to consider that already in 2019, when the Pope summoned the Synod and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops to Rome for an interdicasterial meeting, Cardinal Parolin called what was happening in Ukraine a "hybrid war."
With his statement, Pope Francis wanted to further clarify his position. Perhaps it is a belated clarification, in the face of several situations that have struck a sensitive Ukrainian public opinion: from the decision to have a Russian and a Ukrainian woman carry the cross in the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, a gesture seen as a pressure for reconciliation, to the prayer for the Russian intellectual Darya Dugina, launched without reference to the person, but linking the attack that caused her death to the war in Ukraine when it is still not known who put a bomb in her car.
In any case, the Pope has drawn a clear line, a point of no return. It may seem like a desperate attempt, a last appeal to Ukraine. But perhaps it is the beginning of a new diplomatic offensive by the Holy See, going on behind the scenes.
