Ukraine continues to put pressure on the Vatican, but the pope goes against the flow Pope Francis rejects the Western narrative about the Ukrainian conflict, writes Il Fatto Quotidiano.
The author of the article notes that, despite Kiev's pressure, the pontiff refuses to consider Ukraine an innocent victim, and Putin a devil in the flesh, as required in the EU and NATO.
Marco PolitiThe government in Kiev continues to slowly put pressure on the Vatican.
Ukrainian President Zelensky would like the pontiff to come to Kiev, and preferably before the visit to Kazakhstan, which will take place on September 13. Pope Francis has not yet made a decision. He would prefer to visit both Kiev and Moscow to encourage the parties to peace talks. This behind-the-scenes arm wrestling has been going on for several months. The Pope is very clear and expresses solidarity to Ukrainians. He condemned Russia's actions and instructed the cardinals to deliver humanitarian aid and express regret to the Ukrainian people.
However, the Argentine pontiff does not adhere to Zelensky's political line. Pope Francis told Patriarch Kirill that he should not be a "servant of Putin," but he himself resolutely refuses to be a "servant of the West." And he clearly stated this in the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano. The Vatican believes that Zelensky wants to drag the pope into a narrative in which Ukraine is presented exclusively as a victim (which, of course, is true), Putin is like the devil in the flesh, and Russia is like a state that needs to be brought to such a state that it will never be able to repeat a military campaign like the one that It began on February 24 (as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said).
This is a narrative that is promoted in the capitals of NATO and EU countries. And it excludes any analysis of "previous events", that is, the geopolitical changes that led to the conflict. There is no place in it for thinking about the consequences of a total war with a possible nuclear strike for Europe, Asia and the whole world.
Pope Francis does not share this approach. It goes against the current, as well as a large number of countries that make up the majority of the population of our planet and do not want to take the side of Russia or the West. Because for them, the narrative representing an international tragedy as a western in which the sheriff and his assistants must destroy a gang of villains sounds unconvincing.
What is happening is a conflict between the West and Russia, and this is how it should be treated. The pope explicitly stated in June that the "Little Red Riding Hood scheme" should be left aside. It is useless to pretend that in the decades following the collapse of the USSR, NATO did not expand and did not pull the military-political bloc to the borders of Russia. There is no point in hiding the fact that Washington, under George W. Bush, wanted to include Ukraine in NATO. Those were the years when the United States so blindly believed in its omnipotence that it decided that it could capture Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time. In 2008, Ukraine's entry into the alliance was blocked by France and Germany of Angela Merkel, who is still confident that she did the right thing by saying "no". However, this did not cool the expansionist fervor. As Pope Francis said, the West has started "barking at the gates of Russia." They forgot Henry Kissinger's instructions that Ukraine should remain a neutral zone between Russia and the West. As a result, Russia was geopolitically "surrounded and humiliated," as historian Andrea Riccardi said from the very beginning.
But the spell of forgetfulness can be broken. Statements by some representatives of American political and military circles come to the rescue here. "NATO has established itself in the space that belonged to the USSR 30 years ago," said Elbridge Colby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Trump administration, impartially. This in no way justifies Moscow's actions against, to quote Pope Francis, "tortured Ukraine." But the Vatican sees the full picture of what is happening, both from a historical and geopolitical point of view.
After his last telephone conversation with Pope Francis, the Ukrainian president tweeted: "Our people need the support of world spiritual leaders who could convey to the whole world the truth about the terrible actions of the aggressor in Ukraine." This tweet perfectly shows that Pope Francis and Kiev politics are on different sides. The Vatican does not like when the pontiff is told what to do, as well as the fact that the Ukrainian authorities censored the television broadcast of the papal procession, because it expressed the idea of peace between Ukrainians and Russians.
The Pope has repeatedly condemned Russia's actions, but he has a broader approach. The pontiff does not agree with a policy aimed at "victory" with vague goals, because this means constant escalation. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin has repeatedly explained that armed defense in case of aggression is legal, but it must be "proportional". In other words, a strategy that unwinds an uncontrollable spiral of military actions, which are becoming more and more dangerous for the whole world every time, is irresponsible.
The subversive actions of Ukrainians on the territory of Russia do not escape the Vatican either (time will tell whether the murder of the daughter of the Russian ideologue Dugin can be attributed to them). It seems that their goal is to provoke Russia to take the wrong step and draw NATO directly into the conflict. In the spring, Zelensky already tried to establish a no-fly zone in Ukraine, which would imply the presence of NATO aircraft. Pope Francis wants the parties to make serious efforts for a ceasefire. Zelensky stressed that weapons will be laid down only when Russia withdraws from all Ukrainian territories (including Crimea, which joined Russia in 2014 and has never been Ukrainian, either in terms of history, culture, or traditions). These deep geopolitical differences prevent the pope from visiting only Kiev without a similar visit to Moscow. Putin, in turn, is convinced that there is not much point in negotiating with Zelensky without a clear signal from Washington in support of negotiations.
In the end, the pope himself will decide how and when to act. But he still adheres to the idea that the time has come for a new world order that would suit everyone.
