As Russia continued its assault on Ukraine and Russian troops pressed toward the capital, Kyiv, Pope Francis left the Vatican Feb. 25 to pay a visit to the Russian ambassador to the Holy See.
Vladimir Putin
Ukrainian Archbishop Assures People That God Is With Them
As Russia fired missiles on several Ukrainian cities and Russian troops reportedly landed in Odessa, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church affirmed the right of Ukrainians to defend their homeland and assured his people that God would watch over them.
Pope Francis Calls for Day of Prayer, Fasting for Peace in Ukraine
As the threat of war loomed over the world, Pope Francis called on people to pray and fast for peace in Ukraine on Ash Wednesday.
Local Ukrainian Catholics Seek Divine Intervention in Crisis with Russia
On Tuesday, anxiety filled Ukrainians worldwide as Russian military forces moved into eastern portions of the country that contain citizens of Russian heritage who align with Moscow. Among them are members of several Ukrainian Catholic Church parishes in Brooklyn and Queens.
Pope Meets Putin; Two Leaders Talk About Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela
Pope Francis welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Vatican July 4, and the two discussed the ongoing wars in Eastern Ukraine and in Syria, the Vatican said. Russia plays a major role in both conflicts.
The Cooler Cold War
THE CLAIM THAT “the Cold War is over” and that the West needs a “new paradigm” for relations with Russia has become an antiphon in some conservative political circles, not least conservative Christian circles. The call for serious and creative thinking about Russia is welcome and sensible. The claim that the Cold War is over is not, because Vladimir Putin never got that memo. Ignoring that reality means danger in devising any new paradigm.
Pope Suggests Peace Plan to Putin
When Pope Francis met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vatican June 10, the ongoing crisis in eastern Ukraine was the principal topic of their conversation.
Ukraine: Confusion, Disinformation
TWO RECENT interviews in the National Catholic Register suggest that there is considerable confusion about what’s what in Ukraine. Those confusions reflect the success of the extraordinary Russian disinformation campaign that’s been underway for the past 15 months. They may also touch on the delicate, but important question of Russia’s attempts to buy influence in […]
Kowtowing to Moscow Is Bad Ecumenism
In his work for Christian unity, St. John Paul II often expressed the hope that Christianity in its third millennium might “breathe again” with its “two lungs:” West and East, Latin and Byzantine. It was a noble aspiration. And when he first visited Orthodoxy’s ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople in 1979, perhaps the successor of Peter […]
Ecumenism and Russian State Power
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s department of external relations and a frequent visitor to the West, is a man of parts: a widely published author, a composer, a gifted linguist. He can be charming and witty, as I discovered at the Library of Congress in 2011, and in the intervening […]