According to a report in the Church Times, church leaders in Europe have responded to the news coming out of new talks between US President, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to broker a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
The German Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference said in a statement: “Of course, we welcome a path to negotiations, ceasefire, and peace. But we consider it unacceptable when the aggressor and victim are placed on the same level in moral judgement and practical politics, and when military and civilian aid for an attacked country is used to impose one’s will ruthlessly and blackmail it over access to raw materials….A short-term peace agreement with Russia, with no reliable security guarantees for Ukraine, will not mean long-term peace in Europe. A dictated peace will rather increase threats to stability.”
Meanwhile in Italy, Roman Catholic bishops called on governments to avoid “warlike rhetoric” and to rediscover “the value of diplomacy”. Spending on war was “contrary to reason”, they said, and diverted resources from families, healthcare, and education”. Pope Francis said in a statement that peace rather required “reflection, inner calm, and sense of complexity” and that religions could serve as peacemakers by “drawing on the spirituality of peoples” and rekindling “the desire for fraternity and justice”.
And in northern Europe, the Archbishop of Uppsala and Primate of Sweden said he was moved when he saw how the Christian faith assisted “spiritual and existential stability” in the course of a visit to Swedish peacekeeping troops in Latvia on a NATO deployment.
In response to these statements, the editor of the Independent Catholic News, Josephine Siedlecka, said how she regretted that Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders in Britain were yet to issue statements to this effect. “With Europe rearming and preparing for war,” she said, “our bishops should be speaking out — not aggressively, just reflecting on what Jesus would say.”
Read the Church Times article here.