Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends a plenary session at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine at the Burgenstock resort near Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 16, 2024. / Credit: ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Rom… […]
During the Sept. 9, 2024, session of the International Eucharistic Congress in Quito, Ecuador, Bishop Hryhoriy Komar of Sambir, Ukraine, gave his testimony about the horrors of the war in his country. / Credit: Eduardo Berdejo/EWTN News
Quito, … […]
Pope Francis greets the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Aug. 25, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Aug 26, 2024 / 11:09 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday sharply denounced the Ukrainian government’s recently enacted ban on Russian Orthodox Church worship, arguing that the faithful should not be barred from worshipping as they please.
The new Ukrainian law, which passed the country’s Parliament on Aug. 20, bans the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukrainian territory. The measure comes roughly two-and-a-half years after Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the two countries’ ongoing conflict.
The new law further encourages religious organizations in Ukraine, including the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church, “to break the existing ties with the Russian state,” according to the parliamentary news agency.
In his Angelus address on Sunday, the Holy Father said he has been “thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine,” which he said causes him to “fear for the freedom of those who pray.”
“[T]hose who truly pray always pray for all,” the pope said. “A person does not commit evil because of praying. If someone commits evil against his people, he will be guilty for it, but he cannot have committed evil because he prayed.”
“So let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church. Please, let no Christian church be abolished directly or indirectly,” Francis said.
“Churches are not to be touched!” he added.
The Ukrainian Parliament’s news agency alleged last week that the Russian Orthodox Church has “become a de facto part of the state apparatus of Putin’s criminal totalitarian regime.”
The church “is used by Russia to justify and support aggression against Ukraine and Putin’s insane policies in general,” the state agency claimed.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, last week defended the new law, arguing that the Russian government has used the Orthodox Church “as a tool of militarization.”
The new law aims to offer protection against ideology and narratives being pushed about Ukraine being part of the “Russian world,” the archbishop argued.
A Ukrainian military vehicle drives from the direction of the border with Russia carrying blindfolded men in Russian military uniforms in the Sumy region on Aug. 13, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. / Credit: ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Get… […]
Smoke billows into the air behind a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a missile attack on July 8, 2024. / Credit: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
CNA Staff, Jul 9, 2024 / 12:19 pm (CNA).
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Cat… […]
At his Angelus address June 9, 2024, Pope Francis asked people to pray for the people who are suffering in Myanmar and in Ukraine, giving a special shoutout to some Ukrainians who were in the crowd waving flags. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Ne… […]
Pope Francis meets with Russia’s new ambassador to the Vatican Ivan Soltanovsky on Sept. 18, 2023, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
CNA Staff, Jun 25, 2024 / 13:45 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis on June 22 met with Ivan Soltanovsky, Ru… […]
The Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin attends a plenary session at the summit on peace in Ukraine at the luxury Burgenstock resort near Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 16, 2024. / Credit: ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
CNA Staff, Jun 21, 2024 / 15:25 pm (CNA).
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin this week appealed for dialogue between Russia and Ukraine amid their ongoing war while noting the absence of Russia at the Swiss conference on peace in Ukraine.
“Peace is always made together,” he said June 19 as reported by Vatican News.
Parolin led an observer delegation from the Vatican to the Conference for Peace in Ukraine, held in Switzerland June 15–16. About 100 delegations, mostly from Western countries, attended the conference, AP News reported. Russia was not invited.
Parolin in a statement following the conference reaffirmed the Holy See’s commitment to maintain “regular communication with the Ukrainian and Russian authorities” and assist in potential mediation initiatives, Vatican News said.
Parolin also said the Holy See is greatly concerned about the tragic humanitarian consequences of the war “and is especially committed to facilitating the repatriation of children and encouraging the release of prisoners, especially seriously wounded soldiers and civilians.”
“On behalf of Pope Francis,” Parolin concluded, “I wish to confirm his personal closeness to the tormented Ukrainian people and his unwavering commitment to peace.“
Pope Francis, and Parolin, have repeatedly called for dialogue between Russia and Ukraine as a means of brokering peace in the now two-year-long Russian war of aggression. However, the pope faced criticism when on March 20 he suggested that “the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates.”
“When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate,” the pope said. At the time, Parolin issued clarifying remarks in an interview with Corriere della Sera, saying that it is incumbent upon Russia “as the aggressor” to “put an end to the aggression.”
In his more recent remarks, Parolin said that in the face of war, it is crucial to continue to seek ways to end the conflict “with good intentions, trust, and creativity.”
Parolin has in the past reiterated that Ukraine has a “legitimate” right to defend itself from Russian aggression, but he also has warned that weapons being sent there by other countries could lead to a “terrible” escalation of the war.
In mid-2023, Pope Francis asked Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi to serve as a papal envoy to “initiate paths of peace” between Russia and Ukraine. However, Parolin has since clarified that Zuppi’s mission does not have mediation as its immediate goal.
Members of ACLI (Italian Christian Workers’ Associations) hold a sign with the word “peace” in Italian, in St. Peter’s Square on June 1, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 1, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Being peacemakers in the style of Jesus Christ, while necessary and valuable, can also be risky, Pope Francis said on Saturday, as multiple conflicts continue to rage around the world.
Speaking to members of Italian Christian Workers’ Associations (ACLI) at the Vatican on June 1, the pontiff said, “interceding for peace is something that goes far beyond mere political compromise because it requires putting oneself on the line and taking a risk.”
“Our world, we know, is marked by conflict and division, and your witness as peacemakers, as intercessors for peace, is as necessary and valuable as ever,” he underlined.
Pope Francis’ remarks about a world “bloodied by many wars” came as Israel and Hamas consider proposals for an exchange of hostages and a ceasefire.
“This is truly a decisive moment,” U.S. President Joe Biden said at the White House on Friday, as he unveiled Israel’s three-phase proposal for ending the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not end the war in Gaza until its aims have been achieved.
The Israeli military also confirmed Friday it is carrying out an operation in the center of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, which the United Nations said has been reduced to “apocalyptic conditions.”
Last month, Russia began a surprise offensive on Ukraine’s northern border, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. The assault has forced Ukraine to move already thinly spread resources away from other front lines as it attempts to prevent Russia’s capture of Kharkiv city, Ukraine’s second largest.
In Sudan, millions of people are fleeing the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces as civil war continues to bring devastation over one year later.
The UN has called the conflict “a humanitarian nightmare,” as the country experiences a massive hunger crisis and other human rights atrocities, with the dead numbering around 15,000.
In his speech June 1, Pope Francis recalled the words of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, spoken at a prayer vigil for peace on Jan. 29, 1991.
The cardinal “laid emphasis on the ability to ‘intercede,’ that is, to situate oneself between the contending parties, putting a hand on the shoulder of both and accepting the risk that this entails,” the pope said.
The person who builds peace is the one, he continued, “who knows how to take a clear position, but at the same time strives to build bridges, to listen, and to understand the different parties involved, promoting dialogue and reconciliation.”
Francis also emphasized that the model par excellence of a peacemaker is Jesus Christ. “Where can we find inspiration and strength to welcome everyone if not in the life of Jesus?” he said.
It is good to take time for prayer at association meetings, he told the group, but living out the Christian life goes further.
“Assuming a Christian style means growing in familiarity with the Lord and in the spirit of the Gospel,” the pope said, “so that it may permeate everything we do and our action have the style of Christ and make him present in the world.”
“In the face of cultural visions that threaten to nullify the beauty of human dignity and tear society apart, I invite you to cultivate ‘a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that is not limited to words,’” he emphasized, quoting his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti.
Pope Francis also praised the association for promoting democracy.
A democratic society, he said, is one “in which there really is a place for everyone, in factual reality and not just in declarations and on paper.”
St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów is depicted as the patron saint of Poland in a miniature painted by Stanisław Samostrzelnik of Mogiła. / Credit: Polona Digital Library|Wikimedia|PD-Art
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 8, 2024 / 16:53 pm (CNA).
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