From Rome
Francis tried from the beginning of the war to maintain a diplomatic relationship with Ukraine and Russia to try to reach an agreement as peaceful as possible, but he is criticized in certain Catholic circles and by some media outlets in powerful countries, for never having mentioned to Russian President Vladimir Putin, although every day he condemns the war in Ukraine as “monstrous” and “disgusting”.
As the first Jesuit and Latin American pope in history, Francis was criticized from the beginning of his pontificate. Elected in 2013, already in 2017, just to give an example, a group of Catholic scholars accused him of being a “heretic” for what he had written in his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (2016), among others because he spoke of giving communion to the divorced.
Among his most important opponents were the American Cardinal Raymond Burke and the Italian apostolic nuncio Carlo M. Viganò, who asked Bergoglio to resign. And when he held the first synod on the Amazon in 2019 in Rome, in which the possibility was opened that married indigenous people could be priests, the criticism did not stop. To this were added the trials against abusive priests promoted by the Pope and the trial still underway against former employees and a cardinal, for embezzlement of Vatican funds.
The most conservative American Catholics always saw Francis as a pope too close to the poor and some even accused him of being a “communist”.
The non-role of the UN
In the last general audience held this week at the Vatican, the Pope spoke of the fact that the dominant logic today in the world of politics “is that of the strategy of the most powerful states to assert their own interests and extend their economic, ideological and and military”. And clearly, although without naming them, he was referring to the United States, Europe, Russia and China. Russia, which although it occupies the 11th place among the main world economies according to 2021 data, with this war tries to increase its territory to obtain economic benefits and resume its lost leadership with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.
Always referring to the war, the Pope also stressed in these days that the UN has been completely ineffective. “After the Second World War, an attempt was made to lay the foundations for a new history of peace. But the old story of the great powers competing with each other went forward. And in the current war in Ukraine we are witnessing the impotence of the UN”, said the Pontiff. The powerful countries of the world, in effect, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and China, continue to have control of the UN because they are the only permanent members of the Security Council and only they have the right of veto. The other members of the security council, ten countries that change periodically, do not have it. The Security Council is the highest body of the UN and the only one that can take mandatory measures for the 193 member countries of the organization. An attempt was made to sanction Russia but it put its veto. Despite everything, the UN assembly suspended Russia from the Human Rights Council because of what is happening in Ukraine.
Mediation between Russia and Ukraine?
Francis from the beginning tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Although nothing was openly reported about it, certain facts made it suspicious. Among them the visit he made, without prior notice, to the Russian Embassy in the Vatican at the beginning of the conflict, on February 25. According to the Italian press, his goal was to ask Putin to end the bombing. His meeting with the Russian ambassador Aleksander Avdeev lasted just over half an hour. Although the Pope had known Avdeev for a long time, the talk apparently did not lead to good results. But the Pope always repeated to the press: “I am willing to do everything that can be done.” And he clarified that the diplomatic section of the Holy See is dealing with it, in particular Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, Vatican number two, and Monsignor Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States.
“They are doing everything but we cannot publish what they do out of prudence and privacy,” Francisco said. On March 23, in fact, Cardinal Parolin received the Russian ambassador Avdeev and the meeting lasted about two hours. According to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, among the things they talked about was the Pontiff’s trip to kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, a visit to which he had been invited by President Volodymyr Zelensky when they spoke by phone a few days ago. The fact that on his recent trip to the island of Malta the Pope has reiterated that he does not exclude the possibility of going to kyiv “is a way of signaling to Putin that if the conflict does not stop, the trip could become the last resort to obtain a ceasefire,” the newspaper wrote.
The Pope has tried to mediate by also organizing a meeting with the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who openly supported the war from the beginning, which according to the Russian ambassador could take place this year. But other sources say it could take place in the coming months in Lebanon. Kirill and Francis have known each other for a long time, both even participated in an international religious meeting that was held in Cuba in 2016. Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, the Russian Church and the Vatican have developed a certain harmony. And according to some also a certain sympathy for Putin who apparently protected Christian minorities in the Middle East. But since the war broke out in Ukraine, all that fell apart. The conflict has been described as the first war between Christians, Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholics, seen on European soil after decades of peace.
Gun buying and censorship
Pope Francis has always spoken out against wars and above all against the growth of arms, when, he stressed, thousands of families in the world need food and education, and many governments prefer to spend money on weapons. And March 25 was a special day in this sense, according to an Italian deputy from Italia Viva, Michele Anzaldi, who is on the RAI surveillance commission. The day before, the pope had defined as “crazy” the European countries that had decided to increase their spending on weapons to 2 percent of their Gross Domestic Product. Although the Pope’s condemnation was important, Rai 1, one of the three channels of the state broadcaster and traditionally linked to more conservative sectors, censored the Pope’s comment and did not broadcast it. Instead, they were broadcast by the other two channels, Rai 2 and Rai 3, linked to generally more open and progressive sectors.
But apparently it wasn’t just television. Several important Italian newspapers, both in Rome and Milan, did not publish it. Others did it as background news. The censorship of the words of a world figure like the Pope, shows that certain sectors of Italy are also opposed to pacifists and anti-armamentists like him, according to some analysts.
The New York Times and other newspapers
Always considered one of the best and most objective newspapers in the United States, now The New York Times seems to have gone to the other side. Despite the numerous appeals and the strong gestures made by Bergoglio at the diplomatic and humanitarian level in relation to the war, for the American newspaper the Pope has been too cautious, especially with regard to Russia. “He has carefully avoided naming the aggressor, President Putin, and even Russia itself (…) The Pope deplores the war in Ukraine but not the aggressor,” wrote the New York Times, criticizing Francis also for not having condemned the main religious supporter of the war, Patriarch Kirill. But the American newspaper makes no mention of the unpublicized mediation efforts being made by the Argentine. “The Vatican is aware that it must move with great care and it is important that Pope Francis maintain a language above the parties,” Vatican writer and journalist Marco Politi, a great expert on the Vatican, wrote in the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. from Rome. Other newspapers recalled what popes like John Paul II did when US President George Bush decided to invade Iraq in 2003. The Pope tried to convince him to change his mind. But he didn’t make it. A good number of Catholics then accused him of being a “pacifist” and “unrealistic”. Years later it was shown that the pretext for the invasion – that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” – was a lie, as former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell publicly acknowledged.