Ukraine's response to Pope Francis is scathing.

“Our flag is yellow and blue. This is the flag for which we live, we die and triumph. We will never raise other flags,” replied the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, in a message on X (ex-Twitter), Sunday March 10. 

The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it “negotiations”.



At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican's strategy from the first half…

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) March 10, 2024

"When it comes to the white flag, we know the strategy of the Vatican in the first part of the 20th century. I call on avoiding repeating the mistakes of the past and supporting Ukraine and its people in their fight for life", he added, visibly in reference to the period of the Second World War and the Church's relations with Nazi Germany.

He nevertheless said he hoped that the sovereign pontiff “will find the opportunity to make a canonical visit to Ukraine”.

In an interview with public television RTS dating from early February and broadcast on Saturday, Pope Francis, questioned about the situation in Ukraine, called on kyiv not to be "ashamed of negotiating before things get worse."

Pope Francis in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, March 9, 2024 © Isabella BONOTTO / AFP

“I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” he said.

Francis, head of the Catholic Church since 2013, had already attracted criticism in the first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine by not clearly designating Russia as the aggressor.

Last year, he appointed a cardinal as a mediator to work toward peace negotiations.

The latter has already visited Moscow, kyiv, Washington and Beijing.

Vatican Focus

As of Saturday evening, the Vatican sought to correct the situation by insisting in a press release that the “white flag” formula here meant “a cessation of hostilities, a truce obtained with the courage to negotiate” rather than a surrender.

After the Angelus prayer on Sunday, Pope Francis also called for peace “in martyred Ukraine”.

But other officials took his comments badly.

kyiv's ambassador to the Vatican, Andriy Yurash, compared the suggestion to negotiations with Hitler during World War II.

“If we want to end the war, we must do everything to kill the Dragon!” he wrote on X.

The primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which officially has more than 5 million members in Ukraine, also reacted, without clearly mentioning the pope.

“Believe me, no one has in mind the idea of ​​​​surrendering, even where the fighting is taking place today. Listen to our people in the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, Kharkov, Sumy!” declared Sviatoslav Shevchuk on Saturday during a mass in a church in New York where he was traveling.

Edgars Rinkevics, the president of Latvia, a former Soviet republic which has tense relations with Moscow and fears Russian aggression, called on he who “hoists the white flag”.

My Sunday morning take: One must not capitulate in the face of evil, one must fight it and defeat it, so that the evil raises the white flag and capitulates

— Edgars Rinkēvičs (@edgarsrinkevics) March 10, 2024

With AFP

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