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Pope Francis said this week that he is willing to do “everything” to help end the war in Ukraine, adding that the Vatican “never sleeps” in its diplomacy efforts to try to reach a peaceful solution.
“Wars are anachronistic in this world and at this stage of civilization,” he told Argentina’s La Nación newspaper in an article published on Thursday. He said that two cardinals told him they hoped the war would mostly if not completely end in the first days of May.
“I cannot tell you the details because they would cease to be diplomatic efforts. But the attempts will never stop,” he said, adding, “It is the information they handle, although none is sure that it will finally happen.”
He told the newspaper that he doesn’t think a papal visit to Kyiv is a good idea.
Pope Francis salutes a group of French pilgrims at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, April 20, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
“I cannot do anything that puts higher objectives at risk, which are the end of the war, a truce or, at least, a humanitarian corridor,” he said. “What good would it do for the Pope to go to Kyiv if the war continued the next day?”
Explaining the reason he never mentions Russia or Russian President Vladimir Putin by name: “A pope never calls out or names a head of state, much less a country, which is superior to a head of state.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and Orthodox Patriarch Kirill (R) attend the opening ceremony of the monument to Prince Alexander Nevsky and His Guard at the supposed location of 1224 Battle on Ice, also known as Lake Peipus (Chudskoye) Battle, on September,11, 2021, in Samolva villiage outside of Pskov, Russia.
(Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
He also mentioned that a second meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the leader of Moscow’s Russian Orthodox Church, that was planned for June in Jerusalem has been postponed to avoid heightening tensions. Kirill is a Putin ally.
“Our diplomacy understood that a meeting of the two at this time could lead to much confusion,” he told the newspaper.
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Pope Francis is the first pope Kirill has agreed to meet as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. The two churches historically have had a tense relationship. The pope said in the article that he has always promoted “interreligious initiatives.” The two previously met in Havana in 2016, which marked the first meeting between a pope and a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in nearly 1,000 years, according to Reuters.
