Furious critics compare Pope’s call for Ukraine to wave ‘white flag’ to Nazi appeasement
Pope Francis’ statement that Ukraine should have the “courage of the white flag” in order to negotiate an end to the war with Russia has ignited a storm of criticism by Ukrainian and allied officials — some of whom invoked the specter of World War II appeasement of Nazi Germany.
A Vatican spokesman quickly walked back the statement Saturday, saying Francis supported “a stop to hostilities (and) a truce achieved with the courage of negotiations,” rather than a Ukrainian surrender, which many took it to mean.
But Ukrainian and Polish officials pilloried the remarks, which the pope made in an interview with Swiss broadcaster RSI that was recorded last month and partially released Saturday.
“The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a Sunday post on X.
“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican’s strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” Kuleba said, in an apparent reference to the church’s failure to take action against Hitler’s Germany in the runup to World War II.
“I urge [the Church] to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives,” he continued.
“Our flag is blue and yellow. We live, die and win under it. We will not raise other flags.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski joined in, saying in a post on X that, “for balance,” the pope should encourage Putin “to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine.”
“Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Sikorski said.
“Let’s be clear on this: when a commentator or a politician calls for ‘peace’ and simultaneously advocates denying the victim of aggression the means to defend herself, they actually mean that the victim should capitulate,” Sikorski said in another post. “Such Chamberlainism usually covers baser motives.”
In the powder keg interview, the pope was asked his opinion on the debate between people who say Ukraine should agree to peace talks and those who say negotiations legitimizes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
“I think that the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates,” Francis replied, echoing the interviewer’s use of the loaded term “white flag.”
Ukraine has remained steadfast in its refusal to hold peace talks with Russia since the neighboring nation invaded without provocation more than two years ago.
Although the pope has appeared to maintain the Vatican’s diplomatic neutrality, he has also shown what seems to be sympathy for Russian propaganda that claimed NATO was “barking at Russia’s door” as it slowly expanded east.
“Negotiations are never a surrender,” Francis insisted in the interview. “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate.”
But the pope has also expressed support for the embattled nation, which he has come to call “martyred Ukraine,” according to the New York Times.
Meanwhile, the leader of Ukraine’s Green Catholic Church said the nation’s fierce resistance to an attack that many thought would flatten the country within weeks is the only thing that prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.
“Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure,” Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said during a Sunday meeting with his countrymen in New York City.
“Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender.”
Shevchuk also said that gruesome Russian massacres — such as that in Bucha, a town near Kyiv, where Russians littered the streets with the corpses of hundreds of murdered Ukrainian civilians — would have been “just an introduction” if not for Ukrainian soldiers’ defense of home and hearth.
Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, also invited the pope to Ukraine — which he said would show support for the “more than a million Ukrainian (Roman) Catholics, more than five million Greek Catholics, all Christians and all Ukrainians.”
During the Angelus prayer on Sunday, Francis said he was praying “for peace in the tormented Ukraine and in the Holy Land.”
“Let the hostilities which cause immense suffering among the civilian population cease as soon as possible,” he said.
With Post wires
