The words of Pope Francis regarding Russia have once again generated controversy after a commented speech by videoconference, last Friday, before young Catholics gathered in Saint Petersburg. The Pope has irritated Kyiv by assuring them that they must remember that they are the heirs of czars like Peter the Great, who invaded parts of Sweden and Finland, and to whom Vladimir Putin has compared himself to justify the offensive in Ukraine.
Francis read his prepared speech in Spanish, but in the end he improvised some words in Italian that have generated enormous controversy. “Don’t forget about the inheritance. You are heirs of the great Russia: the great Russia of the saints, of the kings, the great Russia of Peter the Great, of Catherine II, that great Russian empire, cultured, of so much culture, of so much humanity. Do not give up this inheritance. You are the heirs of the Great Mother Russia, go ahead, ”he said. And he added: “Thank you. Thank you for your way of being, for your way of being Russian”.
The Vatican sent the official transcript of the Pope’s speech on Saturday, but did not include this last paragraph, which has also been published through some specialized religious portals. In a statement on Tuesday, the spokesman for the Holy See, Matteo Bruni, assured that the Pontiff “intended to encourage young people to preserve and promote the positive that is in the great Russian cultural and spiritual heritage”, and not “exalt logical imperialists and government personalities, cited to indicate some historical periods of reference”.
With his words, Francis has angered the authorities in Kyiv. The spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, lamented in a message posted on Facebook that it is “precisely with this imperialist propaganda, the ‘spiritual ties’ and the ‘need’ to save the ‘great Mother Russia’ that the Kremlin justifies the murder of thousands of Ukrainians and the destruction of Ukrainian cities and towns.”
“It is unfortunate that the ideas of the great Russian power, which in fact contribute to Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, knowingly or unknowingly, come from the mouth of the Pope, whose mission, in our opinion, is precisely to open the eyes of young people. Russians in the face of the disastrous course of the current Russian leadership,” Nikolenko added.
The Major Archbishop of Kyiv and Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, has also maintained that Francis’ words have caused enormous pain in the Church hierarchy and great disappointment in Ukrainian civil society, since the evoked empire was “the worst example of extreme Russian imperialism and nationalism.”
On the contrary, the Kremlin has been delighted with the Argentine pope’s speech. His spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, said Tuesday that “the Pontiff knows Russian history and this is very good.” “He has deep roots, and our heritage is not limited to Peter (the Great) or Catherine, it is much older.”
“What the Russian state, activist groups, schools and university professors are doing now is bringing this heritage to our young people,” he said. “And for the Pontiff to be in unison with these efforts is very, very gratifying.”
It is not the first time that Francis, who has asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi to act as a mediator in the conflict, has been criticized for a speech on Russia. Although he has condemned the war on numerous occasions and constantly speaks of the “martyred Ukraine”, he has already angered Kyiv by speaking of the car bomb assassination of Darya Dugina, daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, ideologue of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as another ” innocent victim” of war.
