The Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Dr. Taras Dobko, addressed Pope Francis and the Vatican State with a few questions. In his opinion, it is pertinent not to give advice to raise a white flag, but to discuss a new architecture of international security, to develop a papal document on a just and lasting peace and to condemn the "Russian world" ideology.
Taras Dobko voiced his questions to Pope Francis and the Vatican State on his Facebook page:
1) If humanity is on the brink of the Third World War, which, according to the Pope, is already ongoing piecemeal in the format of various local wars on different continents, if the world security architecture has crumbled, if we have become closer to a nuclear catastrophe due to the blackmail threats of the Russian regime to use weapons of mass destruction, why we do not hear anything about efforts to gather a world forum or other global initiatives under the leadership of the Vatican to discuss peacebuilding, a new security architecture and norms of international law, nuclear disarmament, etc.?
2) If the largest and bloodiest full-scale war in Europe after the Second World War has been going on for the third year and more and more countries are involved in this war in various ways, if there is no quick end to it, if in this war pure evil manifested itself without shame and with the conviction of its impunity, if the aggressor kills innocent people, kidnaps children, shoots captives and wipes entire cities off the face of the earth, then why is there still no big papal statement on a lasting and just peace - an encyclical, an apostolic exhortation or an apostolic letter - that would be discussed by the whole world, studied by all seminaries and Catholic universities (Fratelli Tutti from 2020 needs a serious addition in the context of this war); why we do not hear anything about the creation of think tanks and expert centers commissioned by the Vatican to discuss the new international legal order and security infrastructure?
3) If the ideology of "Russian World" developed by the Russian Orthodox Church became the reason and justification for the genocidal messianic plans and actions of the Putin's regime, if the Russian Orthodox Church shamelessly supports military aggression and sanctifies the destruction of Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture, if the Russian Orthodox Church blesses the ideology of ruscism and uses the name of Christ to justify ruscist war crimes in Ukraine, so why hasn't an all-Christian global forum been held on the initiative of the Vatican to condemn this ugly instrumentalization of the Gospel and the compromising of Christianity?
Not for calls for a white flag before it is too late... but for such courageous leadership and the prophetic voice of the Holy Father, we are longing for during a world crisis that can turn into a world catastrophe. For initiatives of this scale, we must mobilize our friends and partners in the Catholic world. Not only the international community, but also the entire Catholic Church should learn from the tragic experience of the war against humanity on Ukrainian land.