Pope Francis met with participants of the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Rome in a private audience. At the Pope's request, the meeting took place an hour earlier than planned in order to have more time for discussion.
According to a statement issued by the Greek Catholic Church, the bishops expressed that some of comments made by "the Holy See and Your Holiness are painful and difficult for the Ukrainian people." For example, the ones he made to a group of young Russians, telling them that they were the heirs of Great Russia. Pope Francis clarified this comment on his return flight from Mongolia.
POPE FRANCIS
It is true that there are empires that want to impose their own ideology. I will stop here: when culture is distilled and turned into ideology, it is poison. Culture is used but distilled into ideology. We want to distinguish between these: when it is the culture of a people and when it is the ideologies that arise from some philosopher or some politician of the people.
At the meeting, the Pope spoke again about these statements and added that "the fact that you doubted whom the Pope is with was particularly painful for the Ukrainian people." He assured them of his solidarity and his constant closeness through prayer.
For their part, the bishops thanked Pope Francis for his initiatives for peace and his efforts for the release of Ukrainian prisoners.
The Major Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, gave the Pope a missionary cross, a prayer book and the rosary of two priests who are still imprisoned by Russian forces.
He also gave the Pope an image of Jesus, recovered from a church burned down after a shelling in a region of Zaporiyia.
This is like a picture of Ukraine because Jesus Christ is the prince of peace. He is our peace.
At the end of the meeting, Pope Francis remarked that he prayed every day before an image of the Virgin Mary given to him by Archbishop Shevchuk when Francis was a bishop in Argentina.
CA
TR: KG
