VALLETTA, Malta (AP) – Pope Francis said Saturday he was studying a possible visit to Kyiv and he blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for starting a “savage” war. Upon his arrival in Malta, he made his most trenchant and personal denunciation yet of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Francis did not quote Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, but the reference was clear when he said that “some potentate” had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in a “childlike and destructive aggression” under the guise of “anachronistic claims” that were more nationalistic Interests.”
“We had thought that invasions of other countries, rampant street fighting and nuclear threats were grim reminders of a distant past,” Francis told Maltese officials and diplomats at the start of a weekend visit to the Mediterranean island nation.
Francis has so far avoided naming Russia or Putin. But Saturday’s personalization of the powerful person in charge marked a new level of outrage for the pope.
“Once again, a potentate sadly mired in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests provokes and fuels conflict, while ordinary people feel the need to build a future that is either shared or not at all,” he said.
The Vatican tends not to call aggressors, hoping to keep options open for dialogue. The Vatican, which in recent years has forged unprecedented new ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, allied with Putin, had offered itself as a potential mediator, but has so far remained largely on the sidelines diplomatically.
Francis told reporters en route to Malta that a possible visit to Kyiv was “on the table” but no dates had been set or the trip confirmed. The mayor of the Ukrainian capital had invited Francis to come along with other religious figures as ambassadors for peace.
Francis also said that the war hurt his heart so much that he sometimes forgets the pain in his knees. Francis has been suffering from a sprained ligament in his right knee for months. The inflammation got so bad that the Vatican arranged for a tarmac elevator to take him on and off the plane for Saturday’s flight to Malta.
Originally scheduled for May 2020, the visit was always intended to focus on migration, as Malta is at the heart of the European migration debate.
Speaking with the Maltese President at his side, Francis denounced the “dirty deals” the European Union made with Libya to turn back migrants and said Europe must show humanity in welcoming migrants. He called for the Mediterranean to be a “scene of solidarity, not the harbinger of a tragic shipwreck of civilisation”.
Francis was referring to the seven-year-old EU program to train the Libyan Coast Guard, which patrols the North African country’s Mediterranean coast for migrant smuggling and brings the would-be fugitives back to shore. The program has been embraced and strongly backed by Italy and other frontline Mediterranean countries to try to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of desperate migrants who pay Libyan-based smugglers to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
Human rights groups have condemned the EU-funded program as a violation of migrants’ rights and have documented severe ill-treatment in the detention centers where returned migrants are being held. Just last week, Germany said its military would no longer train the Libyan Coast Guard given their “unacceptable” and in some cases illegal treatment of migrants.
Francis has condemned the Libyan prisons as concentration camps but went further on Saturday by shaming the EU for its complicity in the abuses committed.
“Civilized countries cannot, in their own interest, authorize dirty deals with criminals that enslave other people,” he said. “Unfortunately that happens.”
“Today, when those crossing the Mediterranean Sea in search of salvation are confronted with fear and the narrative of ‘invasion’, and maintaining one’s safety at all costs seems to be the primary goal, let us help one another Not seeing migrants as a threat and not giving in to the temptation to put up drawbridges and walls,” he said.
“Other people are not a virus that we need to be protected from, they are individuals that need to be accepted,” he said.
Malta, the smallest country in the European Union with half a million inhabitants, has long been at the forefront of the flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean. It has frequently asked its larger European neighbors to shoulder more of the burden of hosting potential refugees.
Francis has repeated this call many times and combined it on Saturday with the reception that the Maltese gave to the Apostle Paul, who, according to the biblical account, was shipwrecked off Malta on his way to Rome around 60 AD and was treated unusually kindly by the islanders became .
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