by Miceál O’Hurley
VATICAN CITY — The Pope’s Easter message on Sunday described the people of Ukraine as “victims” saying, “My thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine, and in Ukraine”. And yet, Francis once again failed to voice criticism of those who have assailed the victims in Ukraine – Russia. Francis’ continued reluctance to name Russia as the perpetrator of a particularly cruel warfare that often targets civilians, housing and critical infrastructure let alone name the war crimes committed by Russian forces has been marked by dismay and disdain for his timidity in attributing responsibility for the suffering caused to Ukrainians by Russia’s unlawful invasion.
The Pope’s reticence to name Russia or cite it for its litany of abuses endures despite the UN Rapporteur citing, “The widespread use of torture by Russian military in Ukraine appears deliberate”. Amnesty International has compiled a veritable catalogue of evidence of the use of rape, torture, extrajudicial killings, targeting of civilian housing and critical infrastructure and other crimes continuing to be inflicted by Russian forces. The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova for the mass kidnapping and transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. After being illegally detained in Russia Ukrainian children are invariably forced to undergo indoctrination known as ‘Russification’ which seeks to eliminates the children’s sense of being Ukrainian in culture, language or identity. Upon reaching the age of military service the children abducted from Ukraine have sometimes been conscripted into the Russian army to fight against their homeland. Albeit, the Holy Father seems complacent to decry the suffering of victims while avoiding any condemnation or criticism of Russia that might lead to it stopping such illegal and morally depraved practices.
What’s At Stake in Francis’ Silence on Russian Crimes and Evil?
The issue for the world is one of Francis remaining obdurate in his refusal to confront the fundamental nature of good and evil in the world. As leader of the world’s 1.378 billion Catholics Francis has the ability to guide public opinion and encourage a model of expected behaviour. Francis’ abdication of that responsibility by his very silence has left Catholic lawmakers adrift and failed to encourage the faithful and other faith traditions from challenging the rampant aggression that has marked Russia’s muscular foreign policy not only in Ukraine but Moldova, Georgia, Syria and increasingly throughout Africa.
Francis’ willingness to condemn the plight of victims without rebuking or confronting those that perpetrate those abject evils that degrades the dignity of the human person to which Francis is avowed to uphold is disturbing. Moreover, it represents a fundamental departure from Catholic dogma. Francis is seemingly reverting to the much maligned conduct of his predecessor, Pope Pius XII who declined to be critical of Nazi Germany throughout his Pontificate.
Pius XII, often derided as “Hitler’s Pope” disclaimed any knowledge of the holocaust and rampant Nazi atrocities across occupied Europe despite the multitude of reports from his clergy detailing the deportation and extermination of Jews and other minorities. In 2020, the German weekly Die Ziet, reported that a review of the latest documents made available from the Vatican Archives prove Pius XII learned of the mass slaughter of Jews as early as the autumn of 1942. The archives also contain papers that indicate, based on the advice of an advisor who dismissed the reports of the extermination of Jews as being “exaggerated“, the Pontiff told President Roosevelt Franklin through diplomatic channels that the Vatican was unable to confirm news of Nazi crimes. Francis’ silence on Russia’s crimes in Ukraine and elsewhere, including the use of the FSB to conduct assassinations even of European soil, shows him alarmingly out-of-step with a world that seems more concerned with morality and ethics than the Catholic Church and the Papacy.
Francis’ Archaic View of “Intrinsic Evil” Allows Him to Avoid Confronting Russia’s Evil Acts
The Pope’s silence on the many evils streamed daily on social media and the nightly news, often captured by the victims themselves, has left the faithful looking for moral leadership feeling adrift. Even the 5.5 million Ukrainian Greek Catholics who proclaim the Pope as the confessional leader in a largely Orthodox Christian Ukraine have voiced their disappointment at Francis’ alternating between silence and often his statements favouring Russia. Unwittingly or not Francis has acted as a Russian apologist by beseeching the West not to seek to “humiliate” Russia despite its rampant aggression and crimes. At other times Francis has praised Russian culture and heritage, going so far as to tout Peter the Great and Catherine the Great whose maintenance of serfdom (and introduction of its bondage into Ukraine). By singling out 2 Czars responsible for the subjugation of Russia’s neighbours through empire building an colonisation Francis stands askew of modernity and adopting a views antithetical to modern sensibilities. For Francis, the guiding thought of war being so abhorrent that its requires universal condemnation prevails without ascribing responsibility for warfare’s attending human misery.
Francis’ folly in rejecting a nuanced moral philosophy in favour of an archaic Catholic view of good and evil is radically re-shaping Vatican diplomacy much to the Church’s detriment. Prior to the Catholic church’s reforming council known as Vatican II in the 1960s war was often described as a an “intrinsic evil” rooted in acts so repugnant they could never be considered acceptable in any circumstance. The rigidity of moral theologians such as Immanuel Kant taught that “moral imperatives” were lines could not be crossed and many in the church adopted this position. This led to the view that In warfare the conflation of these two concepts resulted in genuinely moral perverse conundrums for the faithful. For example, it is generally held that lying is sinful. For most people this is clear. However, a more nuanced understanding of the issue of good and evil in the world as was earlier articulated by Saint Thomas Aquinas hundreds of years before. Thomas, a 13th-century philosopher monk, required the individual to look deeper into each human act when contemplating its morality. This very notion informed the 16th-century Council of Trent which standardised the sacrament of confession. Priests began to explore with penitents the elements of their experience of sinfulness to thereby develop a better understanding of human failings in the hope of avoiding sin in the future. Accordingly, being able to confront evil by examining it, naming it, exploring the nuances of the acts and the reasoning that led the individual to undertake them, and review the over-arching goals which drove the acts became Catholic norms if not requisites for leading an authentically moral life.
In essence Catholicism experienced a shift in moral philosophy by examining the totality of the goals and the individual acts in context – a radical but necessary departure from the concept of “intrinsic evil“. The concept, pioneered by Aristotle, meant that in modernity it would be possible to reconcile committing an evil in order to bring about a greater good – what Thomas would describe as determining an act to be good or bad depending on whether it contributes to or deters us from our proper human end (in Greek, telos).
The Greater Good
In Thoman moral philosophy it is not the “act” alone but its “intention” as well which determines morality. For example, if Nazis were searching door-to-door for Jews in occupied Europe asked a homeowner if they were secreting any Jews the Kantian homeowner who was aware of the “moral imperative” and the then Catholic teaching on “intrinsic evil” would be obliged to tell the Gestapo “Yes, I’m hiding Jews” in order to avoid sin and evil. Common sense indicates how morally bankrupt such an act would be. Despite the homeowner being aware that such a disclosure , although truthful and customarily good, would inevitably result in the death of the Jews being hidden from persecution they would be compelled under such an inflexible philosophical system to betray the Jews they were hiding. In the post-World War II era the defect of this system became glaringly apparent and troubled moral philosophers.
By contrast, Thoman moral philosophy which reconciled ancient Greek philosophy with Catholic theology would not constrain the judgment of goodness and evil to the rise-and-fall of the act of lying but rather adjudge if the lie was necessary to further the overarching goal of goodness – saving lives. By prioritising the goal over the act and balancing the two Catholic teaching sought to grapple with the fundamental challenges of good and evil in the world. For the Thoman and the post-Vatican II Catholic church the moral philosopher would maintain that protecting the Jews from persecution and probable death was a superior act that served a proper human end and was therefore an a priori good. Therefore, in this scenario, the act of lying to the Gestapo was necessary to the fulfilment of the moral goodness of the obligation of one human to protect another human life and therefore the lie serves a ‘greater good‘. In so much as the act of lying may be ordinarily wrong, within the context of the goal of protecting Jews from the Nazis and inevitable extermination, the lie must be viewed as being in service to the greater good and therefore becomes “right”.
Francis indirectly posits that by defending their homeland and its people from Russian subjugation and tyranny Ukrainians are committing an “intrinsic evil” by engaging in, and thereby perpetuating, a war in which he believes Ukraine has already been “defeated”. For Francis, the war serves no good purpose and he berates Ukraine’s leadership for not having “the courage of the white flag, to negotiate…“. The Pope could not be more wrong.
Francis’s estimation of Ukraine’s position is irreconcilable with reality. His moral philosophical position, one largely abandoned by the Church, declaring all war as being “intrinsically evil” relativistically equates Ukraine’s self-defense with Russian aggression. Worse still is that Francis ignores Russia’s states position that they see no reason to negotiate with Ukraine thereby reducing Francis’ chastisement of Ukraine to a meaningless criticism while remaining silent on Russia’s inflexibility. Not only is Francis’ position exposed for being unworkable from the start it only serves as a propaganda point in Russia’s favour. As U.S. Senator Mitt Romney pointed out, “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position. Helping a free people defend their freedom is simply the right thing to do”.
It is ironic that a U.S. politician’s moral stance on Ukraine’s right of self-defense is deemed superior to that of the ‘Vicar of Christ‘ and this is an ill omen for the Vatican. Francis’ public criticism of Kyiv’s leadership for engaging in a heroic self-defense contrasts with Francis’ silence on the Russian “special operation” which it now claims to be a “Holy War” against Ukraine so that Russians can exercise the “right to live within the borders of a single Russian state….“. Francis has yet to explain how his moral theology simply ignores the inherent evil in Russia’s over-arching goal to create a renewed Russian empire and how that evil goal can be achieved by anything but evil acts. Francis has led the Church into a morally bankrupt and unjustifiable position and it will have long-term consequences for the Catholic church and humanity.
Francis’ Moral Reasoning Fails to Consider Russia’s Goal of Empire at Gunpoint
Francis’ rejection of Catholic moral teaching, by adopting the repudiated constraints of Kant’s philosophical “moral imperative:” runs afoul of the “universality principle”. Kant described this principle by asserting a person should “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law without contradiction”. In other words, one should only undertake an action if they believe everyone else should be able, if not compelled to do the same. Here, Francis’ repetitive deploring of the suffering (effect) on humans brought about by war (act) ignores both the evil of the acts that serve the Russian goal of waging an illegal and unjust war in service to their conquest for empire. As Putin’s goal of rebuilding a greater Russian empire is in and of itself evil, in as much as it deprives neighbouring peoples of the dignity of their identity, freedom, exercise of free will et al the acts necessary to pursue Russia’s conquest must also be adjudged to therefore be evil – privations of due good. The question then arises, “Why does Francis condemn Kyiv for its self-defense of its people, land, language, culture and embrace of democracy yet fail to rebuke Russia’s use of aggression to achieve dominion over its neighbours”?
It is not surprising that rape, torture, child kidnapping, targeting of civilians, hospitals, schools and other instruments in service to Russia’s goal of destroying Ukraine’s preservation of its identity have been overt features its invasion, occupation and attempts at annexation of a free and independent Ukraine. What is surprising is that Francis’ approach to the issue of Russian acts of evil in breaching international law is to virtually ignore them. Francis seems satisfied to simply decry the existence of war and the general suffering Ukrainians without confronting the underlying evil and evil-actors that instigated and continue to perpetuate the war. Francis is acutely aware that if Russia were to withdraw from Ukraine the war would be over today and if Ukraine were to surrender as Francis pleads Ukraine would cease to exist today. It is unreasonable for Francis to ask the world to believe that a Russia that pursues and murders those who it feels opposed them, such as Litvenenko, Magnitsky, Skripal, Khangoshvili, Navalny and most recently Kuzminov would not visit equally murderous acts upon Ukrainians that frustrated Russia’s hopes for a quick and easy overthrow of the Ukrainian government in Russia’s embarrassing but deadly 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Pope’s and the Vatican’s position on remaining silent on Russia’s evil pursuit of empire by dastardly means can only serve to invite more misery throughout the world. With the return of authoritarian States demonstrating their propensity to engage in the muscular exercise of power in lieu of embracing democratic processes and diplomacy in is inevitable that in the absence of moral condemnation authoritarian regimes will embrace the notion that the rewards of aggression are greater and faster than attempting to convince people by diplomacy and resort to a rules-based world order to surrender their identity, essence and existence. Francis’ position vis a vis Russia can only encourage more conflict in an already troubled world.
Vatican Position Imperils Role as Mediator and Invites More Aggression
Inevitably Francis commits the Vatican Secretariat of State to a diplomacy that encouraged those injured, oppressed and victimised by the use of brute force to embrace “defeat”, “have the courage of the white flag” and submit to absorption into a single Russian state or be reduced to suzerainty. In his universally derided February interview with Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), a transcript of which was released in early March, Francis abandoned the high moral ground of defending good for the expediency of embracing resolution, no matter how unjust. Francis’ moral philosophy which fulminates against the abiding misery of victims further exploits them by refusing to articulate and inveigh against the very “acts” of evil (rape, torture, murder, child kidnapping, targeting of civilians, et al) and ascribing responsibility to the aggressor. The world expects of all people the Pope of Rome to renounce evil and those who carry-out acts of evil so as to deter them from repeating their sinful and unlawful acts and leading others to follow in their path. Francis’ absolute refusal to name Russia’s pursuit of empire as the causal agent in the war in Ukraine, including its ever-mounting death toll, especially amongst the civilians daily targeted by Russia’s hypersonic missiles, drones and aerial attacks can only be seen as an abdication of the papacy’s moral standing. Even Russia’s repeated threat of the use of nuclear holocaust to cause the world to cower in fear, which Francis previously called “madness,” has failed to dissuade Francis from encouraging Ukraine to submit to Russian aggression. The record is replete with proof that Russia seeks to achieve its goals by the unbridled use of force and it is only Francis who believes Russia can be a reliable and trustworthy negotiating partner.
Even Russia's repeated threat of the use of nuclear holocaust to cause the world to cower in fear, which Francis previously called "madness," has failed to dissuade Francis from encouraging Ukraine to submit to Russian aggression. The record is replete with proof that Russia seeks to achieve its goals by the unbridled use of force and it is only Francis who believes Russia can be a reliable and trustworthy negotiating partner.
The real and present danger of Francis’ and the Vatican’s approach to avoid naming Russia as the aggressor and reciting its litany of evil acts while encouraging Ukraine to surrender to is the likelihood of opening a ‘Pandora’s Box’ of frightening proportions. Ukraine’s surrender of its territory deliver a free, sovereign and democratic people to Russian control. Those souls which Francis would see permanently ceded to Russian control and citizenship would face a life where the rule of law is meaningless, democratic participation at the ballot box would simply be a euphemism for perpetuating Putin’s reign over Russia and life as a person of faith committed to Christian principles would be reduced to servitude in a “holy war” where the remission of sin is promised for those who participate in waging unlawful warfare on Russia’s neighbours. Francis can only pretend to be ignorant of the reality that Russia’s occupation and attempt to annex Ukrainian territory has been an exercise in Stalineque repression, cultural deprivation and ethnic cleansing that verges on, if not surpasses, the test for committing genocide. Other authoritarian regimes with territorial ambitions will in the future undoubtedly follow in Putin’s footsteps of waging cruel war to achieve their goals with the assurance that the model of wielding sustained aggression will be rewarded and achieved without the moral objection of the ‘Vicar of Christ‘.
Russian Orthodox Church Declares “Holy War” in Ukraine – Francis Remains Silent
Francis’ views on Russia do not rise-and-fall with Putin and the State alone. In 2016, two-years after Russia invaded eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and Crimea, Francis met in Havana with Metropolitan Kirill, the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow. Together Francis and Kirill signed a Joint Declaration which included mutually deploring the “hostility” and “confrontation” in Ukraine:
26. We deplore the hostility in Ukraine that has already caused many victims, inflicted innumerable wounds on peaceful inhabitants and thrown society into a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. We invite all the parts involved in the conflict to prudence, to social solidarity and to action aimed at constructing peace. We invite our Churches in Ukraine to work towards social harmony, to refrain from taking part in the confrontation, and to not support any further development of the conflict.
Francis was aware when the Joint Declaration was signed that Kirill had publicly blessed the Russian soldiers who had violated international law by invading Ukraine. Any belief Francis might have nurtured that Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church would, “not support any further development of the conflict” could only have been the product of naivety and wishful thinking.
Francis was at the time he collaborated with Kirill to sign this Joint Declaration aware that the Russian Orthodox Church was using its influence in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea to stir social unrest aimed at injuring what little “peace” still existed. In the intervening years Francis has been made keenly aware that Kirill issued proclamations, beginning in September 2022, promising Russian soldiers who die fighting in Ukraine automatically receiving the remission of all their sins, including for rape, torture or killing of Ukrainian civilians.
Francis has not raised Kirill’s many and ongoing direct breaches of the Joint Declaration or otherwise rebuked the Russian Patriarch for encouraging more-and-more Russians to voluntarily take part in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Nor has Francis spoken-out about the inherent evil of Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church’s 29 March 2024 declaration that Russia’s war on Ukraine was being elevated to the status of a “Holy War“. Indeed, Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church declared in their 29 March Statement that they were undertaking the war to “protect the world from evil” a claim that even Francis must admit lacks credibility or moral justification.
When the opportunity presents itself time and again for the Holy Father to give public witness to issues of justice, law, peace and humanity Francis and the Vatican opt to remain resolutely silent instead preferring to blame war itself without distinction of instigator and defender.
Francis’ Silence in Stark Contrast to Moral Courage of Pope John Paul II
As Saint Thomas More argued before being beheaded on the orders of Henry VIII, “The maxim is “Qui tacet consentiret”: the maxim of the law is “Silence gives consent”. Francis’ silence on Russia’s evil acts and attempting to justify them by his embrace of an archaic moral philosophic view of “intrinsic evil” commits the Vatican to an ideology and diplomacy that tends to condone Russia’s acts. Other States will not doubt seek to repeat Russia’s pattern of aggression in light of Francis embracing its outcomes. Francis seem un-deterred by how Russia achieves its goals through illegality, force, depravity and the instigation of cruel and oppressive warfare. Even on the issue of Russia’s repeated use of nuclear holocaust Francis seems unwilling to call upon Putin and Russia to stop. The Vatican’s ability to serve as an arbiter of peace between Russia and Ukraine has been rendered useless in the process. It is unlikely that other States will in the future view the Vatican as a fair, impartial or constructive party suitable to act as a mediator.
Catholicism and the world would be better served had Francis embraced a more modern, practical and humanistic philosophical approach like that of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II (whom Francis himself proclaimed a ‘saint’). John Paul II (formerly Karol Wojtyla of Poland) had in his youth defied Nazi occupiers by forming an underground cultural group, the Rhapsodic Theatre, to covertly promote Polish language and culture and attended an ‘underground‘ seminary to pursue studies for the priesthood. B’nai B’rith and others have given testimony of his counter-Nazi activities by working to shelter and save Jews during World War II. John Paul II continually named and confronted evil all while inviting the world into a more perfect way to live in peace.
As Pope, John Paul II used the moral and doctrinal authority of the Papacy to decry those who failed to speak out against atrocities during World War II and sought to guide Catholics and Christians everywhere to avoid repeating the failures of that era:
“We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest”. Papal Encyclical, We Remember: Reflections on the Shoa, 12 March 1998, Pope John Paul II
Francis, by contrast, has displayed none of the moral courage that attended his predecessor on the ‘Throne of Saint Peter‘.
As the Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Argentina, Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) had a deeply blemished record in dealing with the country’s military junta during the late 1970s to early 1980s. The junta plunged the country into a seemingly endless cycle of State-sponsored human rights violations, persecutions, kidnappings and extrajudicial murders. Even when two of his fellow Jesuit priests, Fathers Orlando Yorio and Franz Jálics, were kidnapped and tortured by the military junta, ostensibly because of their work in slums of Flores in Buenos Aires, Bergoglio did little if anything to help them. There is no record of Bergoglio having made a public protest during their captivity. In his recent biography, Bergoglio (writing as Pope Francis) maintains he did all he could at the time to help the priests by working behind the scenes. As bishop, Bergoglio apologised for the shortcomings of the Church during the ‘dirty war’. He has, however, never accepted personal responsibility for his role, failings or silence during this period and as Pope Francis has defended himself in his statements and his biography.
Victory over Evil Can Only Be Achieved by Naming Russia’s Evil for What it Is
If Easter’s message of the ultimate victory over evil conveyed by Jesus’ resurrection is to have any authenticity for Catholics this year Francis must finally speak truth to power and repudiate Russia for its evil deeds. Francis must follow the Catholic formula for reconciliation and require repentance, penance and reconciliation with the world.
It is long past time for Francis and the Vatican to show that they are “strong enough to raise their voices in protest” as John Paul II implored the world to do when confronted by evil. Only by articulating the evils employed by Russia to achieve its territorial and colonial ambitions of empire, specifically citing Russia as the instigator of its war on Ukraine (as well as Georgia and Moldova) can the Vatican hope to redeem itself. Francis must be humble enough to admit the errors of his way by ceasing to ignore Russia’s continuing pattern of overt aggression in service of its ambitions. In so doing, and only by doing so, can Francis lead the Vatican and the Church towards a path of redemption and rehabilitate the Papacy and Secretariat of State as suitable entities for the promotion of a just and durable peace.
The world needs a moral leader now, more than ever. Francis has been ‘weighed and found wanting’ and yet tomorrow is another day providing Francis with another opportunity to display the moral courage and mettle that should naturally attend the one who wears the “Shoes of the Fisherman“.
