Pope Francis didn’t intend to “glorify imperialistic logic” in off-the-cuff remarks final week about expansionist 18th-century Russian rulers, the Vatican mentioned on Tuesday, searching for to calm an outcry over feedback that some critics mentioned had been too near President Vladimir V. Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine.
In a video speech to younger Russian Catholics on Friday, “The Pope intended to encourage the youth to preserve and promote all that is positive in the great Russian cultural and spiritual legacy,” the Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, mentioned in a press release. “Surely not to glorify imperialistic logic and government personalities.”
At the conclusion of his speech, during which Francis inspired younger Catholic Russians to construct bridges between generations and unfold seeds of reconciliation, he invoked the legacy of the “Great Russia of saints, rulers, Great Russia of Peter I, Catherine II, that empire — great, enlightened, of great culture and great humanity.”
Those feedback appeared to deviate from his ready remarks, which had been launched in a Vatican bulletin that didn’t point out the extemporaneous references to the 2 former Russian tsars, who invaded components of Ukraine within the 18th centuries.
Those feedback had been instantly criticized in Ukraine and in different former Soviet nations. Mr. Putin, who in contrast himself to Peter the Great in a speech final yr, has talked about the concept of rebuilding the Russian empire in reference to the struggle in Ukraine, which was a part of the Soviet Union till its collapse in three a long time in the past.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, wrote on Facebook that it was “very unfortunate that Russian grand-state ideas, which, in fact, are the cause of Russia’s chronic aggression, knowingly or unknowingly, come from the Pope’s mouth.”
The chief of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, additionally expressed “pain” and “disappointment” over the pope’s remarks, which he mentioned contradicted Francis’ doctrine of peace.
In the early months of the struggle set off by the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the pope was criticized for not taking a powerful sufficient stance towards Russia, apparently following a regular technique of the Holy See to keep away from alienating any warring facet earlier than doable peace negotiations. But because the struggle has continued, Francis has reversed course and referred to as Ukrainians “martyrs” in a “morally unjust” struggle.
Source: www.nytimes.com