KYIV (CNS/Agencies): The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the papal nuncio to Ukraine, to express disappointment over Pope Francis’ comments regarding the death of Darya Dugina, a 29-year-old commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel.
At the end of his general audience on August 24, six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the pope repeated his calls for peace and spoke of how so many people were affected by war.
He noted that no nationalities were spared when it came to children becoming orphans in war, and he said “war is madness” on all sides.
As an example, the pope spoke of “that poor girl [thrown] into the air because of a bomb under her car seat in Moscow. The innocent pay for war. The innocent.”
The pope did not identify the person by name, but Vatican News confirmed he pope was referring to the August 20 killing of Dugina.
…the pope words are ‘a voice raised in defence of human life and the values associated with it, and not … political stance
Pope Francis’ remarks prompted an immediate response from Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See.
“Today’s speech of the pope was disappointing and made me think” about how it is impossible to “speak in the same categories about aggressor and victim, rapist and raped,” he wrote on Facebook.
Although Pope Francis repeatedly has spoken out on behalf of the Ukrainian people, this was not the first time Ukrainian officials have been upset with him for what they see as equating the actions of the aggressor with the victim.
“The Ukrainian heart is torn by the pope’s words. It was unfair,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs minister, said on August 25 .
However, the Vatican Press Office on August 30 pointed out that the pope words are “a voice raised in defence of human life and the values associated with it, and not … political stance.”
The statement said that the pope’s interventions are “clear and unequivocal in condemning [Russia’s war on Ukraine] as morally unjust, unacceptable, barbaric, senseless, repugnant and sacrilegious.”
