Unlike Western nations linked to NATO and the EU, the Holy See has not adhered to the policy of war at all costs against Russia and the arming of Ukraine. Such a balanced position cannot be taken for granted, nor expressed in terms as clear as those used by the Pontiff on this occasion.
A concern for balance
In a falsely dubious tone, Francis even wonders if “Putin’s anger” may not have been “provoked” but at least “facilitated” by “NATO barking at Russia’s gates.” A presentation of the facts which, while clearly condemning the invasion, does not divide the world into “good guys and bad guys,” and highlights the responsibilities of American policy. Few leaders in the West have spoken in such stark terms.
The pope also spoke out against sending arms to Ukraine, rightly fearing that it will only serve to provoke a military escalation. Even this position puts the Pontiff apparently outside the politically correct chorus, which in a very short time has gone from disarmament to a build up of armaments and increased military spending.
For these same politicians, to express doubts about the usefulness of sending arms to Ukraine is tantamount to being seen as Russia’s accomplice.
The declared intention not to go to Kiev but to Moscow, to speak to Putin rather than to the Ukrainian president, also seems to go against the grain. Although probably unrealizable, such a goal has considerable political value at a time when Western propaganda seeks only to delegitimize the Russian government, instead of seeing it as an interlocutor with whom to negotiate an end to hostilities.
The part in which the pope recounts his conversation with the Russian bishop Kirill, who a few weeks ago justified the war as a “crusade” against the perverted West, is also very interesting.
First of all, it must be remembered that one should not feel obliged to choose between the corrupt West and the so-called Russian morality, as certified by a group of bishops who reject Rome and Catholicism.
The Pope obviously does not blame Kirill for this rift, given the new post-conciliar ecclesiology which considers the Orthodox as a “sister church,” according to the erroneous doctrine of Lumen Gentium and Dominus Jesus.
However, it is interesting that he recalls having reminded Kirill that a man of the Church should not be a “State clerk,” nor even Putin’s “choir boy,” but that he should reason from the basis of the Gospel and in an independent manner.
These would be words worthy of the concept of the freedom of the Church, which has always been fundamental to the Roman Pontiffs and which has always been humiliated by Byzantine and Russian Caesaropapism, if they did not come from a modernist pontiff. Because, modernism bends not only the ecclesial policy to the requirements of the power in place, but also the ecclesiastical doctrine itself.
In fact, it is from the propaganda of the post-revolutionary world that the “conciliar Church” has drawn its new doctrines on religious freedom, ecumenism, and collegiality: from ecological policies, which have brought out the pantheism underlying modernist doctrines; from migration policies; from the equality of all the baptized, which denies the difference between the clergy and the laity; from marital morality broken by Amoris laetitia; from the illegality of the death penalty; from a thousand other questions, and potentially from all of them.
Finally, Pope Francis himself concludes his interview with the declarations of a “State cleric,” feeling obliged to praise Italian political figures who have nothing to do with Christianity.
Prime Minister Draghi, a man of international high finance put at the head of the Italian government by the European Union, is defined by the Pope as a “simple and direct person,” with whom relations are excellent; even Napolitano, the former President of the Republic, a former member of the Communist Party and still a man of the left, as well as the current President Mattarella, are defined as worthy of admiration.
But all this could pass for institutional politeness – probably inappropriate – if it were not for the outrageous praise of Emma Bonino, former Italian minister and former member of the European Commission, member of the Radical Party, and main promoter in Italy of the abortion law and of all the most infamous laws against natural morality.
She is known in the media because in the 1970s she bragged about having procured many abortions herself to “help women.”
Repeating statements he had already made a few years ago, the pontiff – while affirming, for once, that he did not share her ideas – declared his greatest admiration for such a woman, in particular because of her “knowledge of Africa.” What example of freedom of speech towards the leaders can the pope give to Kirill?
Francis concludes the interview by announcing his desire to renew the Italian Church through new bishops who do not have a “disguised preconciliar mentality” under conciliar doctrine, and through a eulogy of the late Cardinal Martini.
Pope Francis gave the publisher of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s best-known daily, an interesting interview on the Russian-Ukrainian question, which highlights the point of view of the Holy See. The intervention of the Pontiff presents a geopolitical balance, although some statements seem to lack coherence and a higher vision.