Pope Francis Declines to Condemn Russia at Fatima Shrine in Portugal

On Friday afternoon, a few of the a whole bunch of 1000’s of younger Roman Catholic pilgrims submitting right into a park in Lisbon to hope with Pope Francis stopped to embrace their Ukrainian friends standing on a small hill, holding blue-and-yellow flags and sporting black shirts that includes the faces of kids killed in Russia’s invasion of their nation.

“So many individuals are displaying us help,” mentioned Anastasiia Koval, 17, who wept as younger Catholics from Portugal, Spain, Italy, america and plenty of different nations hugged her. A priest stopped to wipe away her tears. “The pope — I don’t suppose so.”

Since declining to name Russia as the aggressor early within the conflict, Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian folks, even calling them “martyred.” However his methods of pursuing peace — together with a secret mission that baffled Ukrainian officers, and a reluctance to extra fulsomely condemn Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin — have bothered most of the Ukrainian Catholics who got here to this week’s main assembly of Catholic youth from around the globe.

Earlier than his arrival on Saturday in Fátima, in central Portugal, the Vatican mentioned that Francis would pray there for peace in Ukraine and the world whereas bringing Russia’s invasion again into view. However after praying silently in entrance of the city’s shrine and a statue of the Virgin Mary, he made no point out of a prayer for peace or Ukraine, and as an alternative reiterated his central World Youth Day message that there’s room for everybody within the church.

The pope mentioned “nothing,” mentioned the Rev. Roman Demush, who leads the youth ministry workplace for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “The conflict ought to make us scream, and it silences.”

The Vatican mentioned that the pope had prayed “silently for peace” and tweeted from the pope’s account his prayer, which didn’t identify both nation however consecrated the church and world, “particularly these nations at conflict,” to Mary.

Fátima itself has hyperlinks to Russia that return greater than a century. The city is best-known in Catholic custom for 3 secret, apocalyptic prophesies mentioned to be delivered to a few kids by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1917, when it was a poor village. One of many kids went on to grow to be a nun, and mentioned that one prophecy had been that peace would reign on Earth if the pope and the world’s bishops transformed Russia, which grew to become Communist within the yr of the apparitions, and consecrated the nation to the “Immaculate Coronary heart of Mary.”

The prophecy has drawn renewed consideration since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the roughly 500 younger Ukrainians who made the journey to World Youth Day in Lisbon this week began their pilgrimage in Fátima. Fifteen of them additionally met with Francis on the Vatican embassy in Lisbon.

However for these hoping that he would possibly take up their trigger at World Youth Day, there was disappointment, simply as there was final yr when Francis delivered a prayer for peace that consecrated each Russia and Ukraine to Mary, leaving many Ukrainians feeling lumped in with their aggressors.

“He mentioned he was impotent in entrance of this evil,” Father Demush mentioned after the assembly, including that the pope had expressed frustration at being unable to cease the violence. Largely, he mentioned, the pope listened intensely because the younger Ukrainian pilgrims spoke about their struggling within the conflict and the family and friends that they had misplaced.

One of many younger folks, Valentyna Velychko, 17, from Melitopol, mentioned she had spoken of her life beneath occupation and the expertise of getting missiles fall on her city, how three of her buddies had been killed, and the way her boyfriend had misplaced limbs after stepping on a land mine.

Dmytro Bohak, 19, mentioned he had instructed the pope about accidents he suffered whereas driving ambulances and different automobiles into Ukraine. He additionally recalled how one other woman had introduced tears to the pope’s eyes when she instructed him that she may not acknowledge her personal father, who was disfigured bodily and spiritually by the conflict.

However Mr. Bohak mentioned that what was actually wanted was motion by Francis.

“It’s not sufficient simply to pay attention — he has to do one thing,” he mentioned. “We would like the pope to be clear, in an comprehensible approach, that Russia is a terrorist state.”

On Friday afternoon, the bigger Ukrainian group arrange on the curve of a central Lisbon thoroughfare resulting in the park the place the pope solemnly commemorated the Method of the Cross. They sang their anthem between the Christian rock songs that boomed from the loudspeakers, and dispatched the members who spoke English to speak to the younger folks marching by.

“Russia kills us on a regular basis,” Vira Ivanchuk, 24, instructed some Spanish ladies who had stopped to take a look at the rows of Ukrainians. “The faces on the shirts are a small share of the kids they’re killing.”

Once they left, Ms. Ivanchuk defined why she had felt it essential to make her case.

“I perceive that that is perhaps not the place, a pageant, the place folks wish to speak about this,” she mentioned. “However we’d like extra weapons. We want F-16s, as a result of we don’t have aerial capabilities. We want extra weapons, help, financial sanctions, and please pray for us.”

The park continued to fill with 800,000 younger Catholics because the Ukrainians stood principally motionless. Some traded conventional Ukrainian dolls with Individuals who gave out crimson, white and blue rubber bracelets.

Olena Syniuhu, 19, from Lviv, who handed out the dolls, mentioned she had been nervous that a few of the younger folks — particularly Individuals, who she mentioned had “given such an enormous help to us” — could be exasperated with them. As an alternative, she mentioned, she discovered herself subsequent to a bunch of youngsters from Miami on Thursday night time who made it abundantly clear “they had been with us. I may see it of their eyes, it was like free remedy.”

Ms. Syniuhu mentioned she hadn’t seen any Russians there, “and I don’t wish to see any.”

Different pilgrims stopped to embrace the Ukrainians.

“It appeared like the suitable factor to do,” mentioned Anna Susanetto, 18, from Italy, who hugged the ladies.

“I wished to inform them that I’m with them and towards Russia,” mentioned Kristina Kosarkova, 16, from the Czech Republic. “I need the pope to unite the world for Ukraine, and towards Russia.”

Josephine José Alimene, 27, from Mozambique, wept when she noticed the rows of Ukrainians. A number of the Ukrainian ladies came visiting to hug her.

Ms. Alimene and her buddy Thelma Mangue, 44, who each dabbed their eyes with their flowing skirts, accepted the comfort. “We all know what it’s to be in conflict,” Ms. Mangue mentioned.

The occasion was about to start, and Francis arrived in his popemobile, circling Marquis of Pombal Sq., on the perimeter of which stood the Ukrainians. As pilgrims rushed ahead to get a greater look, the Ukrainians stood nonetheless.

Ms. Koval expressed hope that Francis would use his Fátima go to to hope for them.

“I don’t need him to say that Ukraine should forgive Russia, as a result of a number of our persons are dying and we are going to by no means forgive them,” she mentioned by tears. “And I hate Russia for that.”