Local churches shun Vatican's moderate stance on Russia

ROME (AP) — The head of the Polish bishops’ conference has done what Pope Francis has so far avoided doing: He publicly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and urged the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to use his influence with Vladimir Putin to demand an end to the war and for Russian soldiers to stand down.

Provided by Associated Press Russia Ukraine War Vatican

“The time will come to settle these crimes, including before the international courts," Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki warned in his March 2 letter to Patriarch Kirill. “However, even if someone manages to avoid this human justice, there is a tribunal that cannot be avoided.”

Gądecki’s tone was significant because it contrasted sharply with the comparative neutrality of the Vatican and Francis to date. The Holy See has called for peace, humanitarian corridors, a cease-fire and a return to negotiations, and even offered itself as a mediator. But Francis has yet to publicly condemn Russia by name for its invasion or publicly appeal to Kirill, and the Vatican offered no comment on the Russian strike on Europe’s largest nuclear plant that sparked a fire Friday.

For a pope who has declared the mere possession of nuclear weapons immoral and cautioned against using atomic energy because of the environmental threat posed by radiation leaks, the silence was even more notable.

The Vatican has a tradition of quiet diplomacy, believing that it can facilitate dialogue better if it doesn’t take sides or publicly call out aggressors. It has long used that argument to defend Pope Pius XII, the World War II-era pope criticized by some Jewish groups for not speaking out enough against the Holocaust. The Vatican says quiet diplomacy helped save lives then, and it continued that tradition in its Cold War Ostpolitik policy of behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

Francis took an unprecedented step last week when he went to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to meet with the ambassador. But the only thing the Vatican said about the meeting was that Francis went to “express his concern about the war.” He also spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, took a similarly unusual step this week when, in an interview with four Italian newspapers, he actually named Russia in saying the war had been “unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.”

In the case of Ukraine, which counts a few million Catholics among its majority Orthodox population, Francis is not shy about his hopes to improve relations with the Russian Orthodox Church and its influential leader, Kirill. As recently as December, when fears of a Russian invasion were already tangible, Francis expressed hope for a second meeting with Kirill following their historic encounter in 2016, the first between a pope and Russian patriarch in a millennium.

“A meeting with Patriarch Kirill is not far from the horizon,” Francis told reporters in route home from Greece. “I am always available, I am also willing to go to Moscow: to talk to a brother, there is no need for protocols. A brother is a brother before all protocols.”

Francis’ ambassador to Russia, Archbishop Giovanni D’Agnello, met Thursday with Kirill at the patriarch’s residence in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. Kirill's office said the patriarch recalled the “new page in history” opened by the 2016 meeting, expressed appreciation for the “moderate and wise position” of the Holy See in resisting being drawn into the conflict and insisted churches can only be peacemakers.

The Vatican didn't report the meeting and its spokesman didn’t respond when asked for comment.

One of Francis' top communications advisers, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, however, noted Kirill is “facing a great challenge” to weigh the now-growing list of Orthodox priests, metropolitans and ordinary Ukrainian faithful who are begging him to raise his voice against Putin and change position. In an essay published by the Italian news agency Adnkronos, Spadaro didn't count Francis among them, though he quoted the pope as saying recently that it was “very sad” that Christians were making war.

 Provided by Associated Press Russia Ukraine War Vatican

That moderate tone was echoed this week when the Holy See’s ambassador to the United Nations stressed the need for humanitarian corridors in Ukraine to allow refugees out and humanitarian aid in. He didn't identify Russia as the reason they were needed, according to the Vatican summary of his remarks.

The Holy See’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, met Wednesday with his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio. The Italian foreign ministry said Di Maio “repeated Italy’s firm condemnation of the Russian aggression to the detriment of Ukraine and the commitment to continue on the path of effective and incisive sanctions against the government of the Russian Federation," while helping Ukraine in the “humanitarian, economic and defense areas.”

The Vatican, which is sending medical supplies to Ukraine, said nothing after the meeting.

Such silence has not been shared by the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who has been emphatic in his daily denunciations of the Russian invasion. Nor has it been shared by Polish bishops, who are now helping to mobilize the reception of tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees who have crossed the border.

“I ask you, Brother, to appeal to Vladimir Putin to stop the senseless warfare against the Ukrainian people,” Polish Bishop Gadecki said in his letter to Kirill. “I ask you in the most humble way to call for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the sovereign state that is Ukraine.”

“I also ask you to appeal to Russian soldiers not to take part in this unjust war, to refuse to carry out orders which, as we have already seen, lead to many war crimes," he added. “Refusing to follow orders in such a situation is a moral obligation.” 

New Archbishop of Glasgow reaches out to survivors of abuse

The new Archbishop of Glasgow has praised survivors of abuse within the Catholic Church for speaking out about what happened.

William Nolan also insisted the Church must “change our ways to ensure what happened in the past does not happen again”.

His comments came as he was installed as the new leader of Scotland’s largest Catholic community at a mass in the city’s St Andrew’s Cathedral.

Pope Francis had nominated the former Bishop of Galloway for the role after the former archbishop, Philip Tartaglia, died following contracting Covid-19 last year.

Provided by The Independent Archbishop Philip Tartaglia died in January this year. (Danny Lawson/PA)

As he was welcomed into his new role, Mr Nolan spoke about “scandals” which have impacted the Church in recent years and “in particular the child abuse scandal”.

He praised those who had been abused and who had gone on to speak out for having “taken what happened in the dark and brought it to light”.

He told the congregation: “I was here a few years ago in this Cathedral when Archbishop Tartaglia, my predecessor, apologised to the victims of child abuse in the Catholic Church, and I would like to repeat that apology today.

“I would also like to say how much I admire those victims, those survivors, who have come forward and told their story, who taken what happened in the dark and brought it to light and therefore challenged us to face up to the reality of what was happening.”

He said while “theologians have always told us that a church is a church of sinners”, it was only in recent years he had “realised how sinful people in the Church can be”.

The abuse scandal “affected everyone” in the Church, not just its victims, he added.

Mr Nolan said: “Everyone associated with the Church can only hold their head in shame at what has happened.

“And that is not enough. We have to reach out to the victims, the survivors and try to help them and we have to change our ways to ensure what happened in the past does not happen again.”

Hundreds attended at the cathedral for the special mass to install the new archbishop – which was attended by the Papal Nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Bishops of Scotland and more than 100 priests – together with representatives of almost 100 parishes in the Glasgow Archdiocese.

Local politicians were also present including Lord Provost of Glasgow Philip Braat. 

Reference: Independent: Katrine Bussey

Vatican spy story takes center stage as fraud trial resumes

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.

Provided by Associated Press Pope Francis arrives at the opening of a 3-day Symposium on Vocations in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy. According to testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them on key individuals, completely bypassing the Vatican’s own police force in the process.(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

According to written testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them, completely bypassing the Vatican’s own police force in the process.

The reported actions of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, raise some fundamental questions about the security and sovereignty of the Vatican City State, since he purportedly invited foreign intelligence operatives into the Holy See's inner sanctum, and then outsourced internal Vatican police spy work to them.

Peña Parra hasn’t been charged with any crime, though his subordinates have. They are among 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal, on trial in the Vatican criminal tribunal in connection with the Vatican’s bungled 350 million euro investment in a London property.

In the trial, which resumes Friday, prosecutors have accused the Holy See’s longtime money manager, Italian brokers and lawyers of fleecing the pope of tens of millions in fees and of then extorting the Vatican of 15 million euros to finally get full ownership of the property.

Pe ñ a Parra’s role in the scandal has always been anomalous, since he authorized his subordinates to negotiate the final contracts in the deal, and then triggered a suspicious transaction report when he sought a 150-million-euro loan from the Vatican bank to extinguish the mortgage on the property. But prosecutors at least for now have spared him indictment.

The new testimony, reported by the Italian agency adnkronos and “Domani” daily and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, provides another twist in the affair and underscores the Hollywood levels of intrigue that plague the Vatican and have rarely come to light. Until now. 

Reference: By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

Living in a woman’s body: the Taliban fear our beauty, strength – and resistance

As a child, I never rode bicycles or played sports such as gymnastics and karate because it was “not good for girls”. I later understood it was to avoid the risk of breaking my hymen and “losing” my virginity, but I only understood the magnitude of this “loss” when my cousin and best friend got married. She had been abused by a mullah – a religious cleric – as a baby. Her mother was less worried about the trauma caused to her daughter by the abuse than she was about her daughter’s hymen having been broken as a result.

Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

These fears were not misplaced. When my cousin did not bleed on her wedding night, she was sent back to her mother’s home the next morning beaten black and blue. Nobody questioned or blamed the husband.

As I got older, I was always told by my grandmother to avoid wearing tight-fitting clothes that showed my body, and not to put on makeup or leave my hair open (without a burqa), because it would take away from my character. I was not allowed to wax my eyebrows before getting engaged. I grew up in a society where a woman’s worth is her beauty and body, and it is measured in herds of animals, given as a dowry when she is married off.

As Afghan women, our bodies have suffered under fundamentalism, misogyny, violence, patriarchy and US occupation. Today, under Taliban rule, the oppression and violence against women has only worsened. Women wearing nail varnish, high heels or perfume, or leaving their homes without a male companion, or laughing loudly in public, are deemed “immoral”, as are women who venture out of their homes for work or education. Women are paying the price for having dreams because of their bodies; bodies that many people believe are only created to fulfil men’s lust, and therefore have to be covered and hidden, not decorated and revealed.

However, the tide is beginning to change. Afghan women have long felt miserable and ill-fated because of their bodies, as well as guilty about what they are told their bodies do to men. Now, many are beginning to realise that the Taliban burying women’s aspirations beneath a burqa is actually a sign of their weakness. They are fearful of our beauty, strength, resilience and resistance. The brave and glorious protests by women in Afghanistan are proof that we will no longer be silenced. We will continue to fight, resist and rise against fundamentalism, inequality, violence and patriarchy. The Taliban cannot repeat today what they did two decades ago.

I am not ashamed of my body. My body is a symbol of resistance against the forces who want to use it to control me. I will make sure that my daughter also sees her body in this way. Her hymen and virginity will not define her. I will make sure that she rides a bicycle, plays sports and dances freely. She will be proud and courageous. In a society that is exceptionally cruel to women, our bodies will not weigh us down.

Nazia (not her real name) is based in Kabul Reference: The Guardian: Nazia