(ZENIT News / Rome, 12.03.2024).- The Hoy See’s Cardinal Secretary of State has come out in defense of the Pope, following the controversy sparked by the Pontiff’s statements to Swiss Radio Television regarding negotiations to reach peace between Ukraine and Russia.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is also Head of Vatican diplomacy, gave an interview to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, in which he specified that for Pope Francis, to negotiate doesn’t mean to surrender, but that it is a condition for a jut and lasting peace.
The interview prompted the German Ambassador to the Holy See to publish on X a video with a fragment of Pope Francis’ interview, eliciting these words: “Russia is the aggressor and violates International Law. So he asks [alluding to the Pope] Moscow to stop the war, no to Kiev!” Pronouncing themselves in the same sense were the Foreign Minister of Poland, and the European Commissioner of the Interior – Ylva Johansson.
Russia is the aggressor and breaks international law! Therefore 🇩🇪asks Moscow to stop the war, not Kyjiw! 🇩🇪🤝🇺🇦@AndriiYurash #Ukraine https://t.co/DBbjPfSvtg
— Bernhard Kotsch (@GERAmbHolySee) March 10, 2024
How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine?
Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations. https://t.co/gWNYSUt79u— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) March 10, 2024
For his part, President Zelensky said after the Pope’s interview, without referring to him but yes to the image of the white flag used by the Holy Father: “The Russian murderers and torturers can’t advance more in Europe only because the Ukrainians, who bear arms under the blue and yellow flag, stop them.” And he added: “There used to be in Ukraine many white walls of houses and churches , but now they’ve been burnt and ruined by Russian shells. This says a lot about who should stop for the war to end.”
The Ukrainian Catholic Bishops were also disconcerted by the Pope’s words nor have they apologized for him publicly. In fact, they issued a statement saying: “Ukrainians cannot stop defending themselves, because capitulation means their death. The intentions of Putin and Russia are clear. It’s not only him: 70% of the Russian population supports the genocidal war, including Patriarch Kirill and the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church. The objectives expressed are materialized in concrete actions.”
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman of the Russian Government, stressed that the Pope talked of negotiations, not surrender. And he added: “Putin has stated on countless occasions our willingness to resolve our problems through negotiations, and this is the preferable way.”
This is the fourth time that a diplomatic crisis erupts between the Holy See and Ukraine as a result of Pope Francis pronouncements. The first goes back to the Via Crucis of 2022 in Rome’s Colosseum, the second after a statement following the attack on Russian Daria Dugina. The third regarding the Pope’s words on Russian imperialism and, finally, his most recent words.
In an interview published on the German Website DomRadio, the media specialist Erik Flugge said:
The problem of the Pope’s interview is that, with the “White Flag,” he uses an image very charged of culture. A “White Flag” is a flag of surrender. The image is centuries old. All the restrictive things he says pale as to become insignificant.
He doesn’t say that Ukraine should surrender unconditionally, but that peace negotiations should begin. However, with this image he creates the idea that it must be an unconditional surrender. What happened to the Pope here often happens in our media world today.
Individual passages of broader interviews are selected and become a topic of debate. One can complain about it or simply recognize it as a reality of our current media system. The Pope, in turn, doesn’t have the correct vision of the way our media world works.
On X, the former collaborator of RomeReports and now journalist of the Spanish Alfa y Omega, wrote ironically about the interview and all that it sparked afterwards:
It functions thus:
Journalist: Do you think Ukraine must raise the white flag?
Pope: Well, I think that . . .
Headline: The Pope asks Ukraine to raise the white flag. And ale, let’s [get to] work.
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