Pope Leo XIV urges European leaders to be willing to make concessions to help end Russia–Ukraine war — but doesn’t say what should be conceded

Filed 4h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Virtutes Instrumenti

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Fritz Block · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Pope Leo XIV urged European leaders during a visit to France to be willing to make concessions to end Russia's war on Ukraine, comparing his appeal to a 1917 call by Pope Benedict XV during World War I. He did not specify what concessions he had in mind.

The pope also warned against rearmament, saying leaders should ask themselves whether they want peace or are simply preparing for future conflicts, and criticized unnamed leaders for talking about nuclear weapons. He has repeatedly offered the Vatican as a venue for direct talks, an offer Russia has rejected, with its foreign minister citing both countries' Orthodox Christian status.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine stalled in early March after the U.S., previously the mediator, went to war with Iran. Moscow says it will not halt fighting while negotiations proceed.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Asking for courage and concessions without saying whose courage or whose concessions is the safest kind of statement a person in a white cassock can make. It costs nothing, offends no one with real power to change anything, and leaves the actual arithmetic of who loses what to somebody else's desk. A call for peace that skips the terms is a nice sentiment and not much of a plan.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Virtutes Instrumenti · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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