[Sundaycommunity] Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’

[Arthur Blomme]

Hi all.

Here is an article from theThe Daily Beast 
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-francis-says-nato-started-war-in-ukraine-by-barking-at-putins-door> 
reporting Francis speaking out against the manufactured consent in the 
west for war against Russia.  I was pleased to learn that Francis shares 
similar views to myself on this war. Unsympathetic author accuses 
Francis of Conspiracy Theories.  In today's fog of war if you do not 
support the dominant narrative put forward by the powers and 
principalities  you are designated a conspiracy theorist.

Art


  Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’

/The pontiff defended Putin and claimed—without foundation—that it was 
“others who created the conflict” in Ukraine./

ROME—Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis 
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-francis-finally-admits-some-catholic-priests-are-deplorable>has 
floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv 
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/volodymyr-zelensky-believes-president-biden-will-visit-ukraine-soon> 
to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to 
Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin 
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-shadowy-russian-scheme-that-dumped-nazis-into-ukraine-before-vladimir-putins-war>, 
who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war 
and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.

“I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told 
/Corriere Della Sera/ in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting 
would not exactly be to condemn Putin, based on what he told the paper. 
He said that the real “scandal” of Putin’s war is “NATO barking at 
Russia’s door,” which he said caused the Kremlin to “react badly and 
unleash the conflict.”

Never mind that the 85-year-old pontiff is unable to walk after tearing 
a ligament in his knee (for which he says he will soon have surgery), or 
that Putin won’t even answer his calls. Francis repeated comments he has 
made in general audiences and in other interviews that the war is 
nothing more than a giant opportunity for a “trade in arms” and that it 
is still ongoing because of the constant shuttling of weapons to 
Ukraine. He has spoken twice by phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr 
Zelensky, but mostly to urge him not to fight back. He also went to the 
Russian embassy to the Holy See days after the invasion began to 
“register his concerns” about what was happening.

“I don’t know how to answer—I’m too far away—the question of whether it 
is right to supply the Ukrainians,” he told the paper. “The clear thing 
is that weapons are being tested there. The Russians now know that tanks 
are of little use and are thinking of other things. This is why wars are 
waged: to test the weapons we have produced. Few people are fighting 
this trade, but more should be done.”

Whether the Italian journalists didn’t ask—or whether he didn’t answer— 
there was no mention about what would happen if Ukrainians were not 
fiercely fighting back, whether it would mean a full annexation of the 
entire country, millions of deaths, or empowering an already insatiably 
power-hungry Putin.

Francis veered toward conspiracy theory as he blamed the international 
community for instigating the war. “You cannot think that a free state 
can make war on another free state,” he said. “In Ukraine, it seems that 
it was others who created the conflict. I am pessimistic but we must do 
everything possible to stop the war.” The pope then said that in a state 
visit to Rome by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he was told “the 
Russians have a plan, that everything will end on May 9” without giving 
any further explanation. May 9 is the day Russia celebrates its 
liberation and the end of World War II.

The one person Francis will not meet is Patriarch Kirill, the head of 
the Russian Orthodox church, who the pope fears is becoming “Putin’s 
altar boy.” Francis said he spoke with him on the phone for 40 minutes 
on March 15. “And I told him: I completely fail to understand this,” he 
said. “Brother, we are not state clerics; we cannot use the language of 
politics, but that of Jesus. We are pastors of the same holy people of God.”

He said that 40 days ago he asked his secretary of state to start the 
process of organizing a visit to Moscow instead of Ukraine, but that 
Putin had not responded. “I am not going to Kyiv for now,” he said. “I 
feel that I must not go. First I must go to Moscow. First I must meet 
Putin. But I am also a priest, what can I do? I do what I can. If Putin 
would only open the door.”

News of the potential trip to Moscow put the Vatican press corps who 
travel with the pontiff on high alert, with many wondering if they would 
be arrested if they reported on discussions of the war if they were in 
Russia.

But even the pontiff concedes that a meeting in Moscow is a long shot. 
“I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at 
this time,” he said. “But how can you not stop so much brutality?”

<https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/barbie-latza-nadeau>


        Barbie Latza Nadeau

<https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/barbie-latza-nadeau>
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