Pope Francis Went from Backing Ukraine in War with Russia to Now Saying NATO Caused Russia to Respond in Ukraine – Why the Sudden Change?

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Pope Francis offered to meet with Putin but for some reason Putin has not replied. Now the Pope has suddenly gone from supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia to suggesting Putin was responding to NATO’s aggressive moves in Ukraine.

HotAir reports:

This does answer one point — why Pope Francis hasn’t visited the capitals of either country in the latest European war. The pontiff told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra that he would like to visit both Kyiv and Moscow, but thinks that protocol should dictate that Moscow comes first. However, Vladimir Putin hasn’t bothered to answer:

Pope Francis says that he’s offered to travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to help bring an end to the fighting in Ukraine, but he hasn’t gotten any response from the Kremlin. …


“I asked Cardinal Parolin to convey my message to Putin, that I was ready to travel to Moscow,” he told the newspaper. “For sure, I was waiting for some kind of opening gesture from the Kremlin leader. We received no answer whatsoever, but we keep pressing them on this issue.

“I fear, however, that Putin cannot, or does not want to agree to our meeting at the moment. But how can you not try and do whatever you can to stop the atrocities? Twenty-five years ago we saw something similar happening in Rwanda.”

It’s not as if there hasn’t been any communication between the Kremlin and the Holy See. Francis met with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban on April 21, who told the pontiff that Putin had a “precise plan” to end the war within three weeks. How’s that going? Orban said Putin expected that Russia would cease military operations on May 9 — the national holiday in which Russians celebrate the surrender of the Nazis in World War II.