The Vatican has long been an important channel for peace negotiations, and Pope Francis has repeatedly called for an end to the fighting both in Ukraine and in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. That has not stopped criticism of the pope over his comments on Ukraine.
In March, the pope said Ukraine should have “the courage of the white flag,” drawing a sharp rebuke from President Volodymyr Zelensky and from supporters of Ukraine worldwide. Last August, he told a group of young Russians to be proud of their heritage as part of a “great” empire, words that elicited praise from the Kremlin. And when the writer Darya Dugina, a supporter of the invasion and the daughter of the far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin, was killed in a car bombing, Francis called her an “innocent victim” of the “madness of war.”
Such remarks have driven outrage in Ukraine and seem to have exasperated Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Last year, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, told a Ukrainian television channel that Francis could not be a mediator “when his pro-Russian position is unmistakable.”
The less-than-full-throttle defense of Ukraine by the pope may seem perplexing, given the importance of Catholicism to Ukraine. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was instrumental in the formation of a separate Ukrainian identity, which is one reason that Russian forces have targeted the church every time they invade Ukrainian territory. But the pope’s remarks should not be seen as evidence of a pro-Russian stance. Throughout the war, he has denounced the invasion and its subsequent war crimes.
Francis would not be the first pope to have faced such an accusation implying an equivalence between aggressor and victim. During the First World War, Pope Benedict XV faced a similar charge.
It is a great shame that there has not been a push for sainthood for Benedict XV, born Giacomo della Chiesa. Not only did this pope possess a “saintly character,” in the words of the Episcopal historian Phillips Jenkins. Had his campaign during World War I for a “just and lasting peace” been followed (it called for mutual disarmament, the establishment of an international peacekeeping league and an agreement not to impose “indemnities” on the losing side), many of the tragedies of the 20th century might have been avoided. Instead, refusing to condemn or support either side, Benedict XV was attacked by both as favoring the other.
A pamphlet that circulated in Britain in 1916, titled “The Silence of Benedict XV,” condemned the pope for not denouncing Germany and the “forces of darkness” in the war. Later that year, on Dec. 23, the author H. G. Wells attacked the pope and his secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, in The New Republic, writing that “the church has abrogated its right of moral judgment” through its neutrality. In language that anticipated charges later leveled against Pius XII in World War II, Wells also accused Benedict of indifference to the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. In fact, there is evidence that the pontiff did everything he could to stop the genocide.
Critics also asked how Benedict XV could have been neutral when faced with the German invasion of Belgium, a blatant violation of international law, and the subsequent “rape” of that nation. But war often makes people see the world in black-and-white when things are more complex. While Germany’s treatment of Belgium should be condemned, the Russian army committed the same kind of atrocities during its invasion of East Prussia in August 1914. One who did not forget this was Benedict XV, who provided aid to both Belgium and East Prussia and other places devastated by the war.
The comparison between the situations facing Benedict XV and Francis can only go so far. As the historian Christopher Clark has remarked, while countries on both sides bear some blame for World War I, the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is “quite clearly a case of the breach of the peace by just one power.” The government of Ukraine is not perfect, and its less admirable actions may be downplayed by Western media, but an equivalence with Russia cannot be supported. The Bucha massacre and Russia’s repeated assault on Ukrainian culture (whose very existence it denies) fundamentally differ from any crimes committed by Ukraine.
Just as was the case more than 100 years ago, there are no simple answers as to how to end a war. Benedict XV’s prophetic but ignored call for “a stable peace honorable to all” should be an example for Francis. However, the pope should also remember another legacy of his predecessor: his love for the Ukrainian people. While Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky languished in the wastes of Siberia after being deported from Ukraine in 1914 by the Russians, Benedict XV did everything he could to secure his release and lobby for the rights of the Ukrainian people—who, as the pope wrote in a letter to Sheptytsky, have “suffered so much in order to preserve its church.” Benedict XV was a friend and protector to Ukraine, and Pope Francis should strive for that same role.
Previously in America:
