What the Holy Father, who lives in Rome, will say about the war in Ukraine

The Pope has called on Ukraine to surrender and raise the white flag, in a surprising gesture, unusual in diplomatic terms and taking for granted the legitimacy of Russian aggression and the conquest of Ukrainian territories by the Russians. What a shame.

by Ricardo Angoso

The Holy Father, that is, Pope Francis, has been characterized in these two years by his resounding silence in the face of aggression against Ukraine and, more specifically, in the face of the genocidal attitude of the occupiers against that country. The Pope has remained silent in the face of the thousands of rapes of Ukrainian women. He has also said nothing about the thousands of children kidnapped by the Russians and sent to internment camps in Russia. Neither about the Ukrainian soldiers castrated by the occupation forces, he has not even spoken about the destroyed churches, nor about the numerous human rights violations perpetrated by the Russian Army. Nothing, nothing, silence has been the Pope's response, and whoever remains silent grants.

Despite the fact that 10% of the Ukrainian population is Catholic, the Pope has shown himself to be merciless and equidistant, condemning the war, yes, more as if it were an inclement weather rather than the work of a despotic and unscrupulous criminal like the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Equating both parties as responsible for the war, putting Russians and Ukrainians on the same moral and ethical level, is a crazy political perversion more typical of a cynic than a religious leader. For the Pope, then, both Putin and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, are responsible for the war and, without prioritizing responsibilities, both have led Ukraine to this true catastrophe that it is suffering.

Now, to make matters worse, the Pope has spoken and he has done so to appeal to Ukraine to surrender and raise the white flag. Specifically, the Holy Father stated in an interview that Ukraine should have what he calls the courage to “raise the white flag” and negotiate an end to the war with Russia that followed the large-scale invasion of Moscow two years ago and that has killed tens of thousands of people. This is how Pope Francis understands the way out of this war.

Despite everything, the top Ukrainian leader rules out surrendering and continues to stick to the original script, in the sense of demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from all of Ukraine and the reestablishment of its state borders. Zelensky demands full recognition of the national sovereignty of Ukraine and respect for its territorial integrity; He does not accept, under any circumstances, that the path to peace passes through the partition of Ukraine and the integration of four Ukrainian provinces into Russia, as Moscow wishes. The Kremlin has ruled out engaging in peace talks on the terms set by kyiv.

UKRAINE, DEFEATED, ACCORDING TO POPE FRANCIS
Pope Francis already sees Ukraine as defeated and, in short, is appealing for the realities on the ground, that is, the Russian conquests, to be legitimized and accepted as irreversible at a table of hypothetical negotiations, just as he really wants. Russia and Putin “legally” consecrated four Ukrainian provinces by officially annexing them in 2022. The annexed regions, which make up almost 15% of Ukraine's territory, include Donetsk and Luhansk, in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in the South. If we add to these territories the already annexed Crimean peninsula, in 2014, almost 20% of Ukrainian territory would remain in Russian hands.

Sharing Putin's vision regarding the conflict, the Pope, who has already praised “Great Russia” in the past, as Russian ultranationalists refer to their country, calls for the surrender of Ukraine using euphemistic forms: “The word Negotiate is a brave word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you need to have the courage to negotiate.” The only negotiations that have taken place so far between Ukrainians and Russians, held in Turkey, which acted as mediator, clearly demonstrated that Russia is not willing to give up its territorial and expansionist pretensions, as has been demonstrated since the implosion of the extinct Union. Soviet, back in 1991. Russia has taken territories from several of its neighbors, such as Moldova, causing the secession of Transnistria; to Georgia, taking away the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; and Ukraine now with these four districts.

Already in the past, the Pope expressed his sympathy with Putin's theses regarding the fact that the West was threatening Russia with the expansion of NATO towards the East and for having hurt Russian sensitivity by incorporating several States from this area of ​​Europe. in the European Union (EU) and the Atlantic Alliance. This is how the Spanish newspaper El País referred to this matter: Pope Francis has stated that Russia's invasion of Ukraine “perhaps, in some way, it was provoked or not prevented,” according to the transcript published this Tuesday of a conversation that held a few days ago with the directors of the European cultural magazines of the Society of Jesus. “We don't see all the drama behind this war. I see an interest in testing and selling weapons. “It's very sad, but basically this is what is at stake.” Not a word of condemnation of Russia, nor of its president, but rather the war is the result of a kind of Western error and a kind of international conspiracy to sell weapons. How much indecency resides in your verbiage, Pope Francis!

As occurred during the Second World War and the execution of the Holocaust, in which silence and complacency in the face of Nazism prevailed in the Vatican's foreign policy, now Pope Francis, like Pius XII, maintains a pusillanimous and little attitude. firm in the defense of ethical principles and values, justifying the aggressor and remaining silent in the face of their outrages. At least Pius condemn even one of the thousands of crimes committed by the Russians in this war. The Catholic Church, as so many times in its history, once again shows its darkest side. May God take us confessed.