As Catholics around the world mourn Pope Francis, many Ukrainians would remember him bitterly for failing to clearly blame Russia for its invasion and calling for Ukraine to raise the “white flag.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would be one of the prominent mourners at today’s funeral for Francis, even though the pope never visited Ukraine and critics said he echoed Kremlin talking points by saying the war was “provoked” and portraying it as part of a wider global confrontation.
A senior Ukrainian official said the Argentine pontiff had been shaped by Marxist-influenced ideas and showed an “absolute ignorance of this part of the world.”
Photo: AFP
“He did not really understand and was not even trying to understand what was happening here,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, Ukrainian officials have recognized the Vatican’s efforts in mediating prisoner exchanges and the return of children taken from occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia.
Zelenskiy said Francis had “prayed for peace in Ukraine.”
However, the official said the pope “could have done incomparably more for Ukraine,” for example, by persuading countries of the global south to support Ukraine’s struggle.
Above all, Francis “refused to make a clear distinction” between Russia as the aggressor and Ukraine as the victim of the invasion, the official said.
There was frustration soon after the start of the invasion in February 2022 when the Vatican asked two lifelong friends, a Russian woman and a Ukrainian woman, to carry a cross together during a Good Friday ceremony attended by Francis in Rome.
The initiative, intended as a gesture of reconciliation, was not well received in Ukraine. Ukrainian media boycotted the broadcast of the ceremony.
Bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, denounced an “inappropriate, premature and ambiguous idea, which does not take into account the context of Russia’s military aggression.”
Over more than three years of war, the pope repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, but stopped short of a clear condemnation of Russian actions, saying the war was “not a cowboy film with goodies and baddies.”
His comments last month in an interview with Swiss broadcaster RTS proved incendiary in Ukraine.
“I think whoever sees the situation, thinks about the population and has the courage of the white flag is stronger,” the pope said.
“You see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, have the courage to negotiate,” he said.
Then-Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba slammed the comments.
“Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” Kuleba said.
He also referred to historical accusations of inaction by the Catholic Church against Nazi Germany.
“When it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” he said, urging the Holy See to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.”
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