Pope Francis it’s not Karol Wojtyla. At this stage there is a lot of talk about the positions taken by the Vatican related to the war in Ukraine unleashed by Vladimir Putin. And there are discussions about what this or that pope would have done if his reign had occurred at the same time as the conflict that is dragging Ukraine to the sword and beyond.
Would have preferred to mention Joe Biden in Poland Saint John Paul II and his “don’t worry” Jorge Mario Bergoglio called out to the world his scandal because of the “barbarity” of the war, but above all because of the military spending and rearmament of some states.
When it is deemed useless to present historical comparisons that might be inappropriate, it may be useful to recall how Saint John Paul II Russia invade a neighboring country, namely Poland. Ukraine is not the country the Jesuit hails from, while Poland was home to the late Popeturnedsaint.
In any case, as Andrea Indini explained, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires could have chosen Kyiv. But for now, in parts of St. Peter’s Square, they don’t seem ready to perform this sensational gesture. Bergoglio seems to have chosen the “equidistance line for Le Monde and other newspapers. Certainly, some would have expected a harsher condemnation of Vladimir Putin from the Holy See. Others say that the leadership of the Catholic Church cannot use the “language of politics” to bring about peace.
Certainly, as director Augusto Minzolini pointed out in this article regarding other hot periods in Western history, there are some differences from Wojtyla’s positions, as they were in Reagan’s day. The letter to which John Paul II addressed can still be read on the blog of longtime Vatican expert Sandro Magister Leonid Brezhnev, who headed the USSR. Those were the times when there were rumors about the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Poland.
“Therefore, considering the multiple and serious causes of concern created by the tensions over the current situation in Poland, I ask you to do everything possible to ensure that everything that is widely believed to be the cause of these concerns , will be removed,” wrote the Polish Pope succinctly to the Supreme Soviet leader. And again: “I trust that he will do everything in his power to defuse the current tensions in order to reassure public political opinion on this very urgent and sensitive issue.”
What emerges is once again, and although there is no need to repeat it, the Pope’s interventionism Wojtyla in geopolitics. A letter that is also beginning to bounce on Twitter and other social platforms in these hours. Almost as if part of the public expected something similar.