In an interview with the Swiss broadcaster RSI, the pope said the stronger side in the war in Ukraine “is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates.”

Elsewhere in the interview, released in part March 9, the pope specified that “negotiation is never a surrender.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy clearly alluded to the pope’s comments in his nightly video address March 10 but made no explicit reference to Pope Francis.

Zelenskyy, speaking in Ukrainian in a video with English subtitles, thanked Ukrainian military chaplains on the frontline for supporting the troops “with prayer, conversation and deeds.”

“This is what the church is — it is together with people, not two and a half thousand kilometers away somewhere virtually mediating between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you,” he said.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was more direct in a March 10 post on X, criticizing the pope’s call for negotiations as putting good and evil “on the same footing” and urging the Vatican to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.”

“Our flag is a yellow and blue one,” he said. “This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”

The bishops of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church released a statement March 10 in which they said that “with Putin there will be no true negotiations.”

“Notwithstanding the suggestions for a need for negotiations coming from representatives of different countries, including the Holy Father himself, Ukrainians will continue to defend freedom and dignity to achieve a peace that is just,” said the statement signed by bishops including Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, and Archbishop Borys Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

“Every Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory leads to the eradication of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, any independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and to the suppression of other religions and all institutions and cultural expressions that do not support Russian hegemony,” the statement continued.

Andrii Yurash, Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican, went on Italian public television March 10 and said in dealing with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the international community should learn from the lessons of World War II. “The greatest lesson from this war is that no one tried to put Hitler at ease” but rather “everyone tried to weaken him and to strengthen his adversaries.”

Poland’s foreign minister responded to a post on X March 10 with the pope’s comments suggesting the pope should try “encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine.”

Several diplomatic representatives to the Vatican posted on X to support their solidarity with Ukraine after the pope’s comments were reported, including the European Union representative and the British and German ambassadors to the Holy See.

Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters March 9 that Pope Francis’ “white flag” comment was meant “to indicate the cessation of hostilities, a truce reached with the courage of negotiation” and not a surrender.

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Vatican’s top diplomat says Russia and Ukraine must negotiate

By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service

[Vatican City – CNS] – Pope Francis was not asking Ukraine to consider surrendering to Russia when he called for negotiations to end the war, but he was calling for both Russia and Ukraine to cease hostilities and engage in peace talks, the Vatican’s top diplomat said.

It’s “obvious” that creating the conditions for a diplomatic resolution to the war in Ukraine “is not only up to one side, but to both sides,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published March 12. The first step toward reaching peace, he added, is “to put an end to the aggression.”

The responsibility for ceasing hostilities in Ukraine falls “first and foremost to the aggressor,” he said without explicitly naming Russia. Only then, he said, can negotiations begin.

“The Holy Father explains that to negotiate is not weakness, but strength. It is not surrender, but courage,” he said.

The cardinal’s comments came after the release March 9 of a portion of an interview in which Pope Francis said that the warring sides in Ukraine must have “the courage of the white flag” — a term typically associated with surrender but which the Vatican said was intended to mean an openness to negotiations.

Ukrainian civil and church leaders spoke out in response to the pope’s comments. Without directly mentioning Pope Francis, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address March 10 praised church leaders who were on the frontline supporting Ukraine’s defense and “not two and a half thousand kilometers away somewhere virtually mediating between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

In a March 10 post on X, Ukraine’s foreign minister said the pope’s call for negotiations appeared to put good and evil “on the same footing,” and the bishops of the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church released a statement in which they said that “with Putin there will be no negotiations.”

The Ukrainian Embassy to the Holy See said on X March 11 that the Vatican nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, had been called to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs following the pope’s comments, which had “disappointed” Ukraine.

Instead of appeals appearing to legalize “the right of the strongest and encouraging him to neglect the norms of the international law,” the foreign ministry said in its statement, the pope should be encouraging the international community to unite “to ensure the victory of good over evil.”

The ministry also said the pope should be addressing his appeals “to the aggressor, not to the victim.”

While noting that the risk of the use of nuclear weapons is real — and something Russian officials have threatened more than once — Cardinal Parolin said that the Holy See is more fundamentally concerned about the warring sides becoming “increasingly closed in on their own interests (and) not doing what they can to reach a just and stable peace.”

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© OSV News / Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 2024 – from CNS Vatican bureau, used with permission.