Pope Francis will send the Vatican's second highest ranking diplomat, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher to Kyiv. There he will met with his Ukrainian counterpart, he told Italian news program Rai Tg2 Post.
ABP. PAUL RICHARD GALLAGHER
Vatican Secretary for Relations with States
I will go to Kyiv next week, if everything goes well. I will go next Wednesday, and on Friday the 20th I will meet with the [Ukrainian] Foreign Minister.
Archbishop Gallagher had planned to travel to the Ukrainian capital last week, but had to postpone his trip after testing positive for coronavirus. The visit symbolizes the Vatican's closeness with the people bombed by Russia, just as the Pope himself expressed the first Sunday of May.
POPE FRANCIS
I suffer and weep, thinking of the sufferings of the Ukrainian people, and in particular, the weakest, the elderly and children. I beg you, let us not surrender to the logic of violence, to the perverse spiral of weapons. Let us take the path of dialogue and peace.
RGA
TR: JM
