Ukrainian criticism of Vatican’s reaction to Russian intervention

February 12, 2015

Myroslav Marynovych, a vice rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, has strongly criticized the Vatican’s position on the Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Marynovych, a human rights activist, spent a decade in a Soviet prison camp.

“For many Vatican diplomats, the Ukrainian Church is divided, naïve, unskilled in diplomacy-- it does not exist as a center of power,” he wrote in an article published by the Religious Information Service of Ukraine. “For them, it is only a troublemaker that creates problems in relations with the only real center of power in our area, the Moscow Patriarchate. And the Moscow Patriarchate’s clear, scandalous sins do not trouble the diplomats: they will give it priority as long as it remains influential in interchurch relations.”

“The Vatican, silent about Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, has refused to take a position,” he continued. “Even now, grieving over terrible human losses, the Pope says no word about Russia as an aggressor and the true first cause of these losses!”

“So the Pope, a brave pastor and moral authority, is forced to be a careful diplomat who is afraid to name the cause of the pain which his flock is suffering,” Marynovych added. “However, I think it’s even more dangerous that diplomacy and reluctance to spoil relations with Moscow have invaded the domain of the Catholic faith. Calls for reconciliation hang in the air if the main prerequisite of all reconciliation, truth, is not secure.”

 

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Further information:

• When Diplomacy Prevails over the Principles of the Faith (RISU)