VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Tuesday sought to tamp down an uproar that erupted after Pope Francis praised Russia’s imperialist past during a video conference with Russian Catholic youths, insisting that he never intended to encourage modern-day Russian aggression in Ukraine.The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said Francis merely wanted to praise the positive aspects of Russia’s spiritual and cultural history when he exalted Russia’s imperial rulers Peter and Catherine the Great, encouraged young people to remember that past and praised their way of “being Russian.”
Francis “certainly didn’t want to exalt imperialistic logic or government personalities, who were cited to indicate certain historic periods of reference,” Bruni said in a statement.
The Vatican, and before it the Holy See’s embassy in Ukraine, spoke out after Ukraine’s Greek Catholic leader, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, bitterly complained about Francis’ remarks. The Vatican never published the comments, but they were shared on social media following Francis’ video conference with a Catholic youth encounter Friday in St. Petersburg.
Francis delivered a prepared text in which he encouraged the young Russians to be “artisans of peace” and to sow reconciliation “in this winter of war.” But in his off-the-cuff remarks, Francis told the young Russians to al …
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