Ukrainians Dismayed as Pope Declines to Condemn Russia at World Youth Day

On Friday afternoon, a few of the tons of of hundreds of younger Roman Catholic pilgrims submitting right into a park in Lisbon to wish 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 people are showing us support,” mentioned Anastasiia Koval, 17, who wept as younger Catholics from Portugal, Spain, Italy, the United States and lots of different nations hugged her. A priest stopped to wipe away her tears. “The pope — I don’t think so.”

Since declining to call Russia because the aggressor early within the battle, Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian folks, even calling them “martyred.” But his strategies 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 lots of the Ukrainian Catholics who got here to this week’s main assembly of Catholic youth from all over the world.

Before 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. But 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 war should 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 title both nation however consecrated the church and world, “especially those countries at war,” 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 the kids went on to turn out 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 turned Communist within the yr of the apparitions, and consecrated the nation to the “Immaculate 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.

But 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 said he was impotent in front of this evil,” Father Demush mentioned after the assembly, including that the pope had expressed frustration at being unable to cease the violence. Mostly, he mentioned, the pope listened intensely because the younger Ukrainian pilgrims spoke about their struggling within the battle and the family and friends they’d misplaced.

One of the 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 associates 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 lady 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 battle.

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

“It’s not enough just to listen — he has to do something,” he mentioned. “We want the pope to be clear, in an understandable way, 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 Way 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 everyday,” Vira Ivanchuk, 24, instructed some Spanish women who had stopped to take a look at the rows of Ukrainians. “The faces on the shirts are a small percentage of the children they are killing.”

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

“I understand that this is maybe not the place, a festival, where people want to talk about this,” she mentioned. “But we need more weapons. We need F-16s, because we don’t have aerial capabilities. We need more weapons, support, economic sanctions, and please pray for us.”

The park continued to fill with 800,000 younger Catholics because the Ukrainians stood largely motionless. Some traded conventional Ukrainian dolls with Americans who gave out pink, 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 Americans, who she mentioned had “given such a huge support to us” — can be exasperated with them. Instead, she mentioned, she discovered herself subsequent to a gaggle of youngsters from Miami on Thursday night time who made it abundantly clear “they were with us. I could see it in their eyes, it was like free therapy.”

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

Other pilgrims stopped to embrace the Ukrainians.

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” mentioned Anna Susanetto, 18, from Italy, who hugged the women.

“I wanted to tell them that I’m with them and against Russia,” mentioned Kristina Kosarkova, 16, from the Czech Republic. “I want the pope to unite the world for Ukraine, and against Russia.”

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

Ms. Alimene and her good friend Thelma Mangue, 44, who each dabbed their eyes with their flowing skirts, accepted the comfort. “We know what it is to be in war,” Ms. Mangue mentioned.

The occasion was about to start, and Francis arrived in his popemobile, circling Marquis of Pombal Square, 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 wish for them.

“I don’t want him to say that Ukraine must forgive Russia, because a lot of our people are dying and we will never forgive them,” she mentioned by means of tears. “And I hate Russia for that.”