Alessandro Gisotti, vice director of the Editorial Directorate at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, criticized Vladimir Putin by name in a commentary written one month after Russia attacked Ukraine.
The past month has “dramatically brought us back to a century—the 20th century—with the looming threat of a new Cold War, even with the fear of an outright Third World War,” said Gisotti. “Few people really believed that Vladimir Putin would have given the order to attack, as it seemed so absurd, so crazy—even for the interests of the Russian people—to unleash a war in the heart of Europe.”
“The man who has brought back again the horror of war on the Old Continent probably thought that in a few days the ‘issue’ would have been solved,” Gisotti continued. “He ignored in this way, once again, the lesson of history that tragically reminds us—even for the so-called superpowers—that once a war has started you never know when (and how) it will end.”
Describing “every additional day of war” as a “defeat for humanity,” Gisotti said that “this is a defeat to which Pope Francis—with words, with gestures and above all with prayer—asks us not to get used to, encouraging us to build, with patience and courage, a future of peace and hope.”
