The Vatican’s foreign minister has affirmed the Holy See’s commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, at a meeting in Lviv.
On Thursday, the second day of his visit to the country, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Secretary for Relations with States, said that his presence was intended to reassure the Ukrainian people of the Pope’s affection and concern for them, and that his outrage “about atrocities, about the suffering that he has been aware of in the country, is most sincere”.
“He’s trying to be as forceful as he can to defend the Ukrainian people, to point out the fact that they have their freedom, that the integrity of this country has been transgressed,” he told the meeting, which included the Mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, and the city’s Latin-rite archbishop, Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki.
Archbishop Gallagher also emphasised that this was a precondition of the Holy See’s efforts to facilitate negotiations.
“In our contacts with others, we have always said the Holy See remains completely committed to the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he said. “That is our bottom line.”
The Vatican has faced criticism for its diplomatic stance on the war, whereby it hopes to maintain contact with both sides. Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andriy Yurash, who was also present at the meeting, has described this policy as “illusory”.
Archbishop Gallagher’s visit coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the Vatican, which were established shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
After meeting refugees in Lviv on Wednesday, the archbishop spoke to bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church before travelling to Kyiv on Thursday. He praised the Church in Ukraine for being one “that identifies completely with its people and tries to respond to the needs, to help everyone, not only Catholics but also those of other religions”.
He also described the effect of witnessing “suffering written on people’s faces” during his visit.
“When you touch these wounds with your hands in one sense, then you understand really the degree of suffering of your people and how that deserves every support and solidarity on our part,” he told Vatican News.
He described a visit on Friday to Bucha, the town north of Kyiv where Russian troops executed hundreds of civilians, as a “terrifying experience”.
“You can’t forget these things, and your horrified at the suffering we can impose upon others,” he said.
As the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine worsened, the Archbishop of Westminster spoke at a press conference of the Santa Marta group in Rome addressing the growing danger of human trafficking as refugees fled across Europe.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols praised the established international partnerships which were able to act promptly to combat the danger.
As an example, he reported a case where a busload of 27 women and children were saved from traffickers because one woman onboard rang the number on an information leaflet she had been given, allowing police to stop the bus and rescue the passengers.
He warned that the need for such protections would only increase, since “to begin with, the better-educated, probably better-off people were those able to get to the border” while “those coming now are the poorer people who have less resilience and fewer resources”.
The cardinal also called for government action against the profits of human trafficking.
“We want to work to effect the seizure of assets, and the experience of governments over the last few months in seizing the assets of Russian leaders proves this can be done,” he said.