Following controversy in Kyiv over the pope’s remarks regarding the murder of a Russian ultranationalist’s daughter, the Vatican sought to clarify the pope’s position on Ukraine on Tuesday.
According to a statement from the Vatican, “The Holy Father’s statements on this dramatic topic are to be read as a voice raised in defence of human life and the values linked with it, and not as political positions.”
It was emphasised that Pope Francis had “clearly and unequivocally condemned it as morally unfair, immoral, brutal, irrational, disgusting, and sacrilegious” and that the war in Ukraine had been “started by the Russian Federation.”
The Pope had observed of the conflict: “So many innocents… are paying for folly” in a speech on August 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day.
He used the death of Daria Dugina, a Russian ultranationalist and ally of President Vladimir Putin, who was killed when a bomb went off under her car, as an example.
Andriy Yurash, the ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See, reacted that the pope should not have lumped “aggressor and victim” into the same category, and the Vatican representative in Kiev was called to the foreign ministry for an explanation.
Pope Francis, who has consistently denounced the fighting, has come under fire from various quarters on multiple occasions for not portraying the situation in black-and-white terms and for leaving the door open for negotiations with Moscow.
“Someone may say to me at this point: but you are pro-Putin! No, I am not,” the pope stressed in an interview published in June by Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica.
“I am simply against reducing complexity to… good guys and bad guys, without reasoning about roots and interests, which are very complex.”
