The Lord's Shepherd : "The Language of Jesus": A New Schism?

"Disheartening!"

"Ukrainians did not want to hear a less-than-supportive voice from the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church."

"They were gravely hurt that the Holy Father would be willing to preside over a world prayer event that could cast doubt over what was really happening in Ukrainian towns and cities."

Reverend Michael Kwiatkowski, chancellor, Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy, Winnipeg, Manitoba

"It's painful for this to happen, and at Easter."

"I get it, he's the Pope, he's supposed to preach peace, he's supposed to preach reconciliation. But this is a war that Ukrainians didn't start and it's happening right now. People are being murdered, people are being raped, people are being forced from their homes ... It's the wrong time."

Lubomyr Luciuk, political geography professor, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario

"One thing needs to be understood: Francis is not a politician, he is a pastor, [speaking] the language of Jesus."

"Francis acts according to the evangelical spirit, which is one of reconciliation even against all visible hope during this war of aggression."

"His primary interest is not geopolitics but -- as he said three days after the outbreak of the war -- 'ordinary people, who want peace and that in every conflict are the real victims, who pay for the follies of war with their own skin'."

Father Antonio Spadaro, Jesuit priest, editor of journal La Civilta Cattolica, il manifesto

The pope has previously called the invasion “sacrilegious” | Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Images

 

Pope Francis has declared himself emphatically shocked and has wasted few words in condemning a war of aggression by one neighbour against another, leading to a massive wave of refugees, thousands of people killed, a country's infrastructure massively destroyed and the world in turmoil. In his earnest denunciations of the criminality and lack of humanity involved in any conflict, others of which have occurred in other areas of the world, he also spoke of the inequity of world attention and commiseration in settling refugees, based on racism.

Delivering a pastoral message, at the same time as neutralizing the shock over a European area of conflict and its accompanying civilian victims by conflating it with what is occurring outside of Europe. And while Pope Francis earnestly deplored the war that Russia is waging against its neighbour, he confines himself to notional 'neighbours', never once identifying the aggressor nation -- Russia -- or the man behind the implacable decision to mount a violent campaign against Ukraine -- Vladimir Putin.

Worse, as the Christian world's Shepherd of good faith and brotherly love, at the very time that Russian troops are battering Ukrainian towns and cities, deliberately targeting schools and hospitals and civic institutions, burying some of their victims in mass graves, leaving other corpses to lie in the streets of towns they hurriedly abandoned on orders from Moscow to muster from the north to the eastern Ukraine, Pope Francis decided it would be very 'Christian' to choreograph a tender little play.

During the Vatican's annual Easter 'Way of the Cross' ceremonial procession through the Colosseum in Rome on Good Friday, it was arranged that a Ukrainian and a Russian woman, known to one another, in a friendly professional working relationship, held the cross during the procession. A text accompanied the event, stressing peace and reconciliation between peoples. Nowhere any indication that a brutal war is in progress, initiated by Russia against Ukraine.

On that very day, another event that raised critical eyebrows of disbelief from among the Ukrainian community, when the Vatican's Kyiv ambassador along with a cardinal from Poland held a meeting with the main Ukrainian leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. Pope Francis's champions may point out sanctimoniously that the Pope plays no political games, but the emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church represents a church faction led by its Patriarch who has given strong support to the invasion of Ukraine.

What has created a sense of moral indignation and huge disappointment from the Ukrainian communities abroad observing the painful conflict in their country of origin, and as faithful Christians observing the Julian calendar, is their April 24 Easter, leaving them bereft and abandoned in their church. While condemning the barbarity the Ukrainians are facing, Pope Francis avoids naming the aggressor country and its leader, a devout Orthodox Catholic, intransigent and malevolently violent against Ukraine.

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, hearing of the Pope's Way of the Cross procession plan attempted to warn Francis it was poorly timed, incoherent, ambiguous and "even offensive" to his members, leading to the text being shortened, but the two women, signifying the two nations at peace, not war, remaining to hold the cross, hand over hand. 

 Moscow's Patriarch Kirill, has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has enthusiastically endorsed Putin's war against Ukraine, as 'just' and needful. Russia's Orthodox Church clearly politically motivated, clearly eschewing its pastoral duties, and clearly unwilling to denounce an illegal, destructive conflict brought from his country to a neighbouring country. Patriarch Kirill, with whom Pope Francis fairly recently held a 'reconciliation', spoke of a righteous fight between Western decadence and traditional values, in support of the conflict.

 

Mychailo Wynnyckyj, sociology professor at Ukraine's National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy was scathing in his condemnation of the Pope in effectively helping to perpetuate an injustice by saying nothing to offend Russia and Vladimir Putin. According to his assessment the Good Friday events were an effective "slap in the face to Ukrainians" in an outreach to Russian religious leaders involved in Putin's war against Ukraine.

Reminiscent of Pope Pius XII, whose lack of action during the Second World War and neutrality over the Holocaust the Vatican still defends. The Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches are in early discussions of a potential merger. It is now entirely possible that a unified church will no longer consider falling under the Catholic banner, for Pope Francis, according to Mr. Wynnyckyj has made "a massive step in the wrong direction".