LEAD STORY
“THE POPE IS THE ONLY LEADER CLOSE TO THOSE WHO SUFFER IN UKRAINE”
February 27, 2022, St. Peter’s Square. Angelus prayer presided over by Pope Francis from the window of his study in the Apostolic Palace. A group of Ukrainians who live in Italy with their families came to St. Peter’s Square to show their solidarity with their motherland Ukraine, as the war began on February 24, 2022. They await some words of comfort from the Pope
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here is a Bible that the apostolic nuncio to Kiev keeps with particular care. He keeps it with him at the diplomatic seat of the Holy See which is housed in a yellow building in the heart of the Ukrainian capital. It is a burned Bible, found amidst children’s games in a building in Borodyanka, the town north of Kiev bombed in early March and occupied for a month by the Moscow army. It is not far from Bucha, where hundreds of bodies were found buried in mass graves. “Every time I look at it,” explains Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, “I feel like crying, both for the suffering of the people and 12
INSIDE THE VATICAN SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022
n BY GIACOMO GAMBASSI (AVVENIRE)
IN AN INTERVIEW, ARCHBISHOP VISVALDAS KULBOKAS, 48, APOSTOLIC NUNCIO TO KIEV, SPEAKS OF A POSSIBLE PAPAL JOURNEY TO THE SUFFERING COUNTRY, AND THE SUPERFICIAL VIEW OF THE UKRAINE CONFLICT AROUND THE GLOBE. BUT, HE NOTES, THERE ARE ALSO THOSE WILLING TO LAUNCH A DIALOGUE WITH RUSSIA...
for the absurd fact that the whole of humanity is not united in condemning war. I am referring to Ukraine because we are here in Kiev. But it is valid for all conflicts around the world.” A pause, then: “But another thing amazes me: it is the lightness, the superficiality with which the theme of war is approached in various nations. ‘Will Ukraine or Russia win?’ seems to be the only question. As if war were a game. We stop at the theoretical level, as if behind all this there are no victims, no wounded, no people on the run or traumatized… and the heart does not know what it means to pity.”
