Pope Francis has condemned the routine use of “conventional weapons” against civilian targets in a message to Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, sent the day after a warehouse in Ukraine containing 300 tons of humanitarian aid was destroyed in a Russian drone attack.
On March 9, 2022, Valentina Polischak fled Huliaipole, Ukraine. It was four days after Russian soldiers had invaded her small town in the southern part of the country, about 90 miles northwest of Mariupol, and “shot all of the cars and homes,” leaving it without running water or electricity.
In a session with Catholic bishops from Ukraine Thursday, Sept. 7, Pope Francis’s personal peace envoy told the Ukrainian prelates that “victory” in the war with Russia would be “peace, and never the humiliation of the enemy.”
When religion or culture is used to sow division or to impose a certain world view on others, it becomes an ideology, Pope Francis said.
Russian clergy and lay Catholics were “caught by surprise” by the pope’s remarks in a video call Aug. 25 to a youth gathering in St. Petersburg praising the country’s past empire and urging young people to “never give up this heritage.”
A Ukrainian Catholic bishop has urged Russians to learn lessons from the fate of mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, and choose “true democracy” rather than “an unstable dictatorship.”
Russian occupiers launched an attack Aug. 22 on St. Teresa of the Child of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in the town of Skadovsk, located in the Kherson region in eastern Ukraine, Bishop Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk of Odessa-Simferopol confirmed on Facebook.
The top-ranking U.S. military officer told reporters he and Pope Francis discussed the war in Ukraine, especially the war’s impact on the people there.
Pope Francis, having not mentioned the war in Ukraine throughout his 5-day visit to Portugal, offered explicit prayers for peace in the country on his final day, while also telling young people they are signs of peace for the world.
During a meeting with interreligious leaders Aug. 4 in Lisbon, Pope Francis spoke to a Russian Orthodox bishop who voiced regret for the Ukraine war and thanked the pontiff for his repeated efforts and words on behalf of the Ukrainian people.
