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.”
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS