‘Just peace’ must be more than a slogan, says Shevchuk

The Trump administration’s decision last week to close Voice of America – which it claimed broadcast ‘radical propaganda’ – alarmed several Church leaders.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), called on the Church to renew its condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to expose Russian propaganda during negotiations for a ceasefire.

He said any political and diplomatic decisions on Ukraine must be based on the true meaning of “just peace” rather than merely an “illusion of peace”, warning that a failure to act in this way would risk treating just peace as a mere slogan. “Let us remember that unpunished evil will eventually resurface even more forcefully and with more drastic consequences,” he said.

Archbishop Shevchuk alleged that Russian propaganda has already poisoned international relations, adding that “without a clear distinction between the truth and the biggest lie of our time – the ideology of the ‘Russian world’ – the end of the war in Ukraine will never result in a just and lasting peace”.

The latest ceasefire negotiations in Saudi Arabia between US and Russian officials followed the limited success of an agreement on energy infrastructure, which saw both Russia and Ukraine accuse the other of violations.  Over the weekend, there were several hours of air raid warning in Kyiv and in eastern parts of Ukraine.  Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko described the drone attacks as “massive”.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, expressed support for the negotiations and said he hoped “that no preconditions will be imposed that would prevent the initiation of dialogue”.

“Since Ukraine has finally expressed its willingness, we hope that there will also be willingness from the other side to initiate this ceasefire,” he told reporters last week.

He also criticised the EU’s €800-billion “ReArm” initiative to enhance the its defence capabilities, pointing out that the Vatican has advocated for “general and controlled disarmament” since the First World War. “When rearmament takes place, sooner or later, the weapons must be used, right?” Parolin said.

Bishop Gerald Vincke of Salina, the newly-appointed chairman of the US bishops’ Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, visited Ukraine last week, where he reassured Archbishop Shevchuk of American Christians’ support.

“We know you are walking a gruelling Way of the Cross, bearing many crosses. We pray for you and promise to care for you because we love you,” he said.

Shevchuk welcomed the visit as an act of “transatlantic solidarity”, showing that “at a time when various sentiments are being sent from America to Ukraine, the Catholic Christians of America are actively supporting us”.

The battle of ideas that has engulfed Ukraine

Ukraine ‘counting on’ Vatican for support in ceasefire

The Trump administration’s decision to close Voice of America (VOA) – which it claimed broadcast “radical propaganda” – alarmed several Church leaders including the UGCC Archbishop of Philadelphia Borys Gudziak. “We are ashamed that America is silencing its own voice,” he said after the announcement last week.

Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius, the president of the Lithuanian bishops’ conference who also heads the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences, called the closure “very saddening – not only from the position of their mission, but my own background as well”.

Grušas was born in Washington DC in 1961, after “Khrushchev’s Thaw” – an initial easing in Cold War hostilities under Stalin’s successor – allowed his Lithuanian parents to reunite after more that decade spent on the different sides of the Iron Curtain.

“My brother-in-law worked for the VOA for many years in Lithuanian section, later on in the central newsroom, so I know the VOA quite well,” Grušas told The Tablet.

“Their mission was extremely important during the era of the Cold War and the occupation of Lithuania, when it was one of the few sources of real and legitimate information to reach the people in Lithuania, and therefore, was an assistance in the whole liberation movement that later on brought about the independence.”

VOA not only broadcast information from the West, but also helped to spread the information from Lithuania itself, broadcasting underground publications which documented the persecution of the Church.

“Both the Radio Free Europe and the VOA, and also the Vatican Radio… was a way for many people to discover what was really going on in Lithuania at the time,” Grušas said.

The loss of VOA and Radio Free Europe was therefore “very painful for those countries where their information sources are not as readily available – I’m thinking of Belarus, of Russia”, he said.

Asked whether he imagined the US might ever team up with Russia on the geopolitical stage, Grušas said: “I don’t know if I would go so far as to say ‘teaming up’. I think there is an attempt to find the solution for peace, which is admirable, but I think we get caught up in the web of disinformation and don’t get the true position of what’s going on.”

He hoped this would clear and that “there won’t be a joint direction of the US and Russia”.

“On the other hand, the best way to defeat the enemy is no longer make him the enemy, but it’s a long way until we get there. Hopefully, we are able to arrive at the peace, especially in Ukraine, but also all the other hot spots in the world.”

Grušas said the sweeping changes on the world arena have left many people in acute need of spiritual guidance, which made it important to remember that “no matter how difficult things look at any time, God is still in charge”.

“It was out of the terrors of the Second World War that eventually the European nations united and became the European Union, and lived for 70 years in a peaceful situation,” he said. “We hope that we can grow and really create a world for the future that is a world of peace.”

Ukraine Church leaders demand ‘truth and justice’ amid diplomatic crisis

In the court of King Donald

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