Pope Francis in the Vatican on April 30.
Photo: vincenzo pinto / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Shortly after America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pope Francis quoted former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she criticized the 20-year war: . ”
The problem is that the pope is quoting Vladimir Putin, not Mrs Merkel. This blunder came to my mind when an Italian newspaper published an interview with the Pope on Tuesday.
Francis suggested that “NATO barking at Russia’s gates” may have led Putin to invade his non-alliance neighbor. “I have no way of knowing if his rage was provoked,” he continued. “But I suspect this may have been facilitated by the attitude of the West.” Asked if it was right to send weapons so that Ukraine could defend itself, the pope said “I don’t know” before criticizing the world arms trade.
After the invasion, Francis called for an end to the war and criticized the violence, but did not directly call on Russia to start the conflict. Now that he is finally speaking, he accuses NATO of accepting members who want to avoid Russia’s invasion. What a terrible moral signal to send to dictators.
The pope said he had asked for an audience with Mr Putin, but had not received a reply. Asked if he would visit Kyiv, he said he should go to Moscow first: “If Putin decides to leave the door open. . . “It’s a model. We recall that the Pope refused to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2020, at least in part because of America’s opposition to the Vatican’s shocking agreement with the Chinese Communist Party.
It is not a question of whether the Vatican adheres perfectly to the West or whether US Pope John Paul II has been a vocal critic of the 2003 Iraq war, but has retained the respect of those who remember his opposition to Soviet imperialism. Consistency matters.
The pope is the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics, but the moral authority behind the papacy – however damaged – may still exceed religion from time to time. This makes Francis’s ambiguous statement about the Russian invasion of Ukraine even more disappointing for those who remember how powerful a force for good a pope can be.
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Appeared in the print edition of May 4, 2022.
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