ROME — Pope Francis on Saturday came closer to blaming Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin for invading Ukraine, saying a trip to Kiev was possible when he arrived in Malta for a short visit, highlighting the plight The situation of migrants, an issue that has long reached the top of the Papal agenda and that has become critical with the war in Ukraine.
On the flight to Malta from Rome, Francis responded to a reporter’s question about a visit to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, by saying it was “on the table”. Then in his address to dignitaries and officials in a frescoed government chamber in Malta, Francis blamed a “potentate, sadly entangled in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests”, for casting “dark shadows of war” from eastern Europe. .
Francis has refused to explicitly name Mr. Putin or Russia as the aggressor for a variety of reasons, including the Vatican’s hopes of playing a role in a possible peace deal, and as a precaution not to harm Roman Catholics around the world. endanger. But on Saturday, he seemed to speak clearly about Mr Putin, who, Francis said, “provoked and fueled conflict”.
“We would have thought that invasions from other countries, ferocious street fighting and nuclear threats were grim reminders of a distant past,” the pope added. “However, the icy winds of war, bringing only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept powerfully over the lives of many people and affected us all.”
Francis, 85, spoke on Saturday during his 36th foreign trip since his 2013 election, but those years have taken their toll. He boarded the plane in Rome using an elevator, as an inflamed ligament in his right knee and sciatica have recently increased his weakness and reduced mobility.
Once in Malta, he walked with difficulty – and with the help of an assistant. Vatican officials expressed concern about his sailing trip later in the day on a catamaran to the island of Gozo and navigating the steps to St. Paul’s Cave on Sunday in Rabat, northern Malta.
The trip, originally scheduled for May 2020, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and now comes amid another unforeseen global disaster, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, bombing civilians and enforcing a new migration crisis. Before leaving Rome, he met Ukrainian mothers and children who had escaped the war.
Dressed in his white robes over black trousers, the Pope met officials and dignitaries from an island that, according to scriptures, welcomed the Apostle Paul with “unusual kindness” when he was shipwrecked there, an image he played up in his address to calls for better treatment of migrants.
“Paul was a man, a man who needed help,” Francis said. “Humanity is first and foremost: that is the lesson learned by this country whose history was blessed by the arrival of the castaway.”
He said Malta means “safe haven” according to Phoenician etymology.
“Nevertheless, given the growing influx in recent years,” Francis said, “fear and uncertainty have led to a certain amount of discouragement and frustration.”
Migrant advocates have accused Malta of turning desperate people away from its shores in recent years. And even on Friday, Maltese news media reported that a ship carrying about 100 people rescued in international waters sought a safe haven in Malta, but the government had refused to let them disembark.
On Saturday, Francis said that “great numbers of people are moving from the poor and populous south to the rich north – this is a fact and it cannot be ignored by adopting an anachronistic isolationism.”
But he also noted the new migration crisis unleashed by the war in Ukraine, arguing that Europe had more than enough land and countries to protect them with dignity.
Francis also addressed other issues that have emerged in Malta, including the country’s struggles with corruption, smuggling and money laundering. In 2017, the country’s best-known investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was killed in a car bomb attack after she accused companies and politicians associated with a prominent businessman of corruption.
In a clear allusion to corruption, Francis urged Malta to “strengthen the foundations of life in society, which rests on law and legality” and “to cultivate legality and transparency, which will enable the eradication of corruption and crime.” who act neither openly and in broad daylight.”
But it was the war in Ukraine that demanded much of his attention. The Pope urged cooler heads in the face of an “infantile and destructive aggression that threatens us, before the risk of an extended Cold War”.
Francis has long called for disarmament, a position he has maintained even as Europe tries to defend itself against a growing Russian threat. Last month, he angrily said he was “ashamed to read that a group of states have pledged to spend 2 percent of their GDP on gun purchases in response to what’s happening – the madness!”
Instead, he has talked about achieving world peace through undefined “international relations,” which would replace a model ruled by “economic-technocratic-military power.”
