Former ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Holy See Piotr Novina-Konopka wrote an open letter to Pope Francis in response to his words spoken at a general audience on the Independence Day of Ukraine.
The text of the open letter was published by Więź, according to CREDO.
We provide the Ukrainian translation of the letter below.
Holy Father, keeping in grateful memory the cordiality and understanding that Your Holiness expressed to me during my service as ambassador to the Apostolic See, I ask you to consider your words spoken during a general audience on August 24, 2022, in the context of the war in Ukraine.
I fully agree with Your Holiness's words about the madness of war, about resisting atrocities committed (from any side) against children, prisoners and civilians who are not involved in the war.
However, I believe that "guilt" does not lie equally on everyone since the Cross of Abel is not equivalent to the Cross of Cain. First of all, I don't understand the definition of the victim of the Moscow assassination attempt, miss Daria Dugina as an "innocent victim".
This young woman — and not just her father — led the people who sought war and wanted to take away the national self-determination of Ukrainians, their independence, and their freedom from Ukrainians, using the sick ideology of the Russian World to threaten with nuclear weapons.
No terrorist attack is the correct response to such a position. However, I also think it would not be right to call active ideologues "innocent victims". Moreover, the attackers who committed the attack have not yet been reliably named. An important feature of the current pontificate is that the Pope avoids entering the role of a judge; unfortunately, the words spoken in the Vatican meant exactly this [judging], were so perceived and therefore so painful for our Ukrainian brothers and so many people of good will. The aggressor does not deserve to be called an "innocent victim".
With all due respect, Piotr Novina-Konopka, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Holy See in 2013-2016.
On August 24, when reflecting on the victims of the war, the Holy Father said: "I think of the great cruelty, the many innocent people who pay for the madness, the madness, the madness of all sides, because war is madness, and no one in war can say: "No, I'm not crazy." The madness of war... I'm thinking of a poor girl who was blown up in Moscow by a bomb planted under a car seat. The innocent pay for the war!"
Ambassador of Ukraine to the Holy See Andriy Yurash responded to the Pope's words.
He said the Pope's speech disappointed him because Dugina is not an innocent victim. She was one of the ideologues of imperialism the Russians placed on their war shield.
In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine summoned Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine Archbishop Viswaldas Kulbokas to express his disappointment with the words of Pope Francis about the death of Daria Dugina, the daughter of the odious ideologist of the "Russian World".
Dicastery's editorial director for communication, Andrea Tornelli, responded to the pain of Ukrainians caused by the Pope's words in this way: the pope spoke with the heart of a shepherd, not a politician. He wanted to express Christian respect for the dead. He did not want to hurt the feelings of the population of Ukraine.