ROME (CNS): Communicating Pope Francis’ efforts to promote dialogue and advance peace efforts in Ukraine is a “great problem” for Catholic clergy and faithful in the country, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of Kyiv-Halych, said on September 14 at a news conference to close the 10-day synod of Ukraine’s Eastern Catholic bishops in Rome.
“Due to misunderstandings that we have had recently, I wouldn’t know how many Ukrainians remain that declare their full confidence in the public image of the pope,” Archbishop Shevchuk said.
“Before the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the Holy Father was the most-respected religious leader in Ukraine,” he said, noting that surveys showed more than half of all Ukrainians considered the pope to be a moral leader. But “at the end of last year, this popularity fell to very low levels, some say six or seven per cent.”
The misunderstandings include Pope Francis’ August 25 comments encouraging young Russian Catholics to be proud of their heritage as descendants of the “great, educated Russian Empire” [Sunday Examiner, September 3]. He clarified on at least two occasions that he was referring to Russia’s cultural and not imperial legacy.
Two weeks later, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed in an interview with Ukrainian media that the Vatican has no mediating role in the war because the pope is pro-Russian. Archbishop Shevchuk said he was told by the Ukrainian ambassadors to the Holy See and to Italy that the comment was not the position of the Ukrainian government but rather Podolyak’s personal opinion.
Due to misunderstandings that we have had recently, I wouldn’t know how many Ukrainians remain that declare their full confidence in the public image of the pope
Archbishop Shevchuk
“I am not sure that the Ukrainian government has closed all the doors” to collaborating with the Holy See in the name of peace, the archbishop said, citing the example of Matteo Cardinal Zuppi’s peace mission that took him to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and now Beijing to meet with government and Church officials [Sunday Examiner, September 17]. The cardinal, the archbishop of Bologna, went to Beijing from September 13 to 15 to support humanitarian efforts and look for ways to achieve a “just peace,” the Vatican said on September 12.
Cardinal Zuppi elaborated on what a “just peace” means in his meeting on September 7 with the Ukrainian bishops, underscoring that such a peace must “respect certain moral principles, principles of international law,” and must be designed to “endure through time,” Archbishop Shevchuk said.
Now, “Cardinal Zuppi’s mission to Beijing will be very important, because we know that China is a large geopolitical player that has always declared itself to be available to look for peace,” the archbishop said.
“What does a Chinese peace mean? We don’t know. What does a Russian peace mean? We know this well,” he said.
The 45 Ukrainian bishops that participated in the synod met with Pope Francis on September 6. Archbishop Shevchuk said that after a bishop recounted the pain of his people, the pope told them, “You have another pain, maybe you doubt who the pope is with.”
It is up to us to convince our people of this message, to articulate it well and communicate well…for us bishops, it is a challenge to articulate the message that we have received from the Holy Father
Archbishop Shevchuk
The pope told them, “I assure you I am with you.”
The archbishop said, “It is up to us to convince our people of this message, to articulate it well and communicate well,” but noted that “for us bishops, it is a challenge to articulate the message that we have received from the Holy Father.”
Archbishop Borys Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia, said the 10-day synod demonstrated the link between the Church in Kyiv and Rome through meetings with Pietro Cardinal Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Kurt Cardinal Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity; Claudio Cardinal Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches; and Cardinal Zuppi.
“It’s clear the pope is not an enemy of Ukraine,” he said. “This time, not only what was said, but the opportunity to be together clears up that the pope is with the Ukrainians and that our Church is with the successor of Peter.”
