Pope says he is ready to meet Putin in Moscow

The church leader tells this in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera.

According to the newspaper, the head of the Catholic Church states that he is still waiting for a response from Putin and that he fears that Putin “can not or will not meet at this time”. However, the Pope means there is still reason to speak with the Russian leader. “So much brutality, how can you not stop it? Twenty-five years ago, we experienced the same thing with Rwanda”, Francis says.

The willingness to meet with Putin can be seen as remarkable since the Pope has shown reluctance in a new meeting with the Russian Patriarch Kirill. Pope Francis wants Kirill to distance himself from Putin and the war in Ukraine, but so far, without success.

Francis reminded his 40 minutes Zoom meeting with Kirill in the interview on March 16th. “The first twenty minutes, he had a card in his hand, and he read me all the justifications for the war. I listened and told him: I do not understand anything about this. Brother, we are not clerics of state; we cannot use the language of politics but that of Jesus. (…) The Patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin’s altar boy.”

The Pope says Kirill and he agreed not to meet again. “He too agrees: let’s stop, it could be an ambiguous signal.”

Evacuation Mariupol

Pope Francis drew up a plan to evacuate civilians from Mariupol using boats under the Vatican flag. That would be a means to flee from the beleaguered city. Russia, however, said no to this proposal.

Since the war started in late February, the Pope has tried to mediate in the conflict. According to the Swedish newspaper Dagen, he has planned to organise an evacuation three times. But all these three times, he was stopped by the Russian President Putin. The Russian guarantees were withdrawn at the last minute the first two times.