Pope Francis said in an interview published Tuesday that he requested a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, while comparing the scale of the bloodshed to Rwanda's genocide.<\/p>\n
The pontiff told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that he had sent a message to Putin around 20 days into the conflict saying that \"I was willing to go to Moscow\".<\/p>\n
\"We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting, though I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time,\" Francis said.<\/p>\n
\"But how is it possible to not stop such brutality? Twenty-five years ago, we lived through the same thing with Rwanda,\" he said.<\/p>\n
About 800,000 people were killed between April and July 1994 as the extremist Hutu regime tried to wipe out Rwanda's Tutsi minority, in one of the 20th century's biggest massacres.<\/p>\n
The pope has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine and denounced a \"cruel and senseless war\" without mentioning Putin or Moscow by name.<\/p>\n
\"I'm not going to Kyiv for now. I feel I shouldn't go. I have to go to Moscow first, I have to meet Putin first,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Francis also said Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close Putin ally, \"cannot become Putin's altar boy\".<\/p>\n
Dialogue with the Orthodox Church, which separated from the Catholic Church in 1054, is a priority of Francis's pontificate.<\/p>\n
But since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the pope's calls for peace have contrasted with Kirill's defence of Putin's fight against Russia's \"external and internal enemies\".<\/p>\n
- 'Barking of NATO' -<\/p>\n
Questioning the conflict's causes, the pope spoke of an \"anger\" in the Kremlin which could have been \"facilitated\" by \"the barking of NATO at Russia's door\".<\/p>\n
The remark sparked a reaction in Poland where Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek said on public television: \"For sure, many of us are taking our heads in our hands on hearing what the pope has said.\"<\/p>\n
In the interview, the pope also addressed the pain in his knee that has forced him to cancel various public engagements in recent months.<\/p>\n
\"I have a torn ligament, I will undergo an intervention with infiltration, and we'll see,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The Vatican would not say what the pontiff was being injected with or when, but a source told AFP the ligament problem was linked to chronic arthritis in his right knee.<\/p>\n
Infiltration can involve injecting drugs directly into inflamed or damaged joints and has an immediate effect.<\/p>\n
\"I've been like this for a while, I can't walk,\" Francis told Corriere della Sera.<\/p>\n
\"Once upon a time, popes were carried on gestatorial chairs,\" he said, referring to the ancient shoulder-carried ceremonial throne on which popes were borne aloft until 1978.<\/p>\n
He appeared to rule out reviving the throne.<\/p>\n
\"A bit of pain, of humility, is necessary,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Francis told a newspaper in Argentina in April he was treating the torn ligament by putting ice on it and taking some painkillers.<\/p>\n
ide\/ar-kjm\/ach<\/p>\n
RCS MEDIAGROUP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis said in an interview published Tuesday that he requested a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, while comparing the scale of the bloodshed to Rwanda's genocide. The pontiff told Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper that he had sent a message to Putin around 20 days into the conflict saying that \"I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,1],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-91684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed","category-non-classifiee"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n