ROME – Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to travel to Kyiv to try and negotiate a ceasefire. But now he says he would rather go to Moscow to try to reason with Vladimir Putin, whom he has not outwardly condemned in the war that has now been going on for almost 3 months, but only flippantly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper. “I think before I go to Kyiv, I have to go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran on Tuesday. But the meeting would not exactly serve to condemn Putin based on what he told the newspaper. He said the real “scandal” of Putin’s war was “NATO barking at Russia’s door,” prompting the Kremlin to “react badly and unleash the conflict.”
It doesn’t matter that the 85-year-old Pope can no longer walk after torn ligaments in his knee, which is due to be operated on soon, or that Putin doesn’t even answer his calls. Francis repeated comments he had made in general audiences and in other interviews that the war was nothing more than a huge opportunity for an “arms trade” and that it was still ongoing because of the constant transfer of arms to Ukraine. He has spoken twice on the phone to Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy, but mainly to urge him not to fight back. He also went to the Russian embassy to the Holy See days after the invasion began to express “his concern” about what was happening.
“I don’t know how to answer the question – I’m too far away – whether it’s right to supply Ukrainians,” he told the newspaper. “It is clear that weapons will be tested there. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and think of other things. This is why wars are fought: to test the weapons we produce. Few people fight against this trade, but more should be done.”
Whether the Italian journalists didn’t ask — or if he didn’t answer — there was no mention of what would happen if the Ukrainians didn’t retaliate violently, whether it would mean a full annexation of the entire country, millions of dead, or the empowerment of one already done insatiably power-hungry Putin.
Francis turned to conspiracy theory when he blamed the international community for inciting the war. “You can’t believe that a free state can fight another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, others seem to have caused the conflict. I’m pessimistic, but we must do everything we can to end the war.” The pope then said that during a state visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Rome, he was told: “The Russians have a plan that everything will happen on May 9th ends”, without giving any further explanation. May 9th is the day that Russia celebrates its liberation and the end of World War II.
The only person Francis will not meet is Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who the pope fears will become “Putin’s acolyte”. Francis said he spoke to him on the phone for 40 minutes on March 15. “And I told him, ‘I don’t get it at all,'” he said. “Brother, we are not clerics of the state; we cannot use the language of politics, but that of Jesus. We are pastors of the same holy people of God.”
He said that 40 days ago he asked his foreign minister to start the process of organizing a visit to Moscow instead of Ukraine, but Putin did not respond. “I’m not going to Kyiv for the time being,” he said. “I feel that I must not go. First I have to go to Moscow. First I have to meet Putin. But I’m also a priest, what can I do? I do what I can. If only Putin would open the door.”
News of the possible trip to Moscow put the Vatican press corps traveling with the pope on high alert, and many wondered if they would be arrested for covering discussions about the war in Russia.
But even the Pope admits that a meeting in Moscow goes a long way. “I am afraid that Putin cannot and does not want to have this meeting at this time,” he said. “But how can you not stop so much brutality?”