The leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has asked Pope Francis to drop his plan to have Ukrainian and Russian families join in carrying the cross during the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday in the Roman Coliseum.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that the gesture, accompanied by a plea for reconciliation, would be “incoherent and even offensive,” since the “does not take into account the context of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash, had already raised an objection to the plan.