The Warmongering (and Propagandistic) Response to Pope Francis from Ukrainian Catholic Bishops

In the wake of Pope Francis’s call for peace in Ukraine, the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church issued a response – or perhaps a rebuke – of the Holy Father’s plea for peace. The Catholic bishops attempt to walk a fine line, trying not to sound insubordinate while also rejecting everything Pope Francis had to say. At the same time, they peddled to their readers what can only be described as Ukrainian propagandistic talking points that utterly fail to address the military facts on the ground, the dangers of nuclear escalation, and the actual history that led up to the current phase of conflict in Ukraine.

Let’s look at what the Ukrainian Catholic bishops had to say, and address what they left out.

The bishops write: “Ukrainians cannot surrender because surrender means death. The intentions of Putin and Russia are clear and explicit. The aims are not those of one individual: 70% of the Russian population support the genocidal war against Ukraine, as does Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church.”

Surrender means death. What makes these words so appalling and so dangerous is the fact that they create a false dilemma that forces unsuspecting readers into the belief that Russia will in fact kill every man, woman, and child in Ukraine if Ukraine negotiates an end to the fighting. Of course, negotiation is not the same as surrender. Indeed, Pope Francis himself declared: "Negotiating is never a surrender” (empahsis mine). Yes, the negotiations will be painful. Yes, Ukraine will lose some of its territory and agree to remain a neutral nation. But a negotiated settlement will not mean death. A negotiated settlement will save what is left of Ukraine and spare all mankind from the threat of nuclear catastrophe.

The bishops’ description of the conflict as a “genocidal war against Ukraine,” only adds to the confusion by giving false credibility to a claim that can only lead the world to war. What evidence is there of a genocide? According to statista.com, a total of 10,582 civilians have died in Ukraine since Russia entered the conflict in 2022. Compare this to the war in Gaza where Israeli forces have killed around 30,000 civilians and injured around 70,000 more. That’s 100,000 civilian casualties in a matter of months compared to around 10,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths in over two years. If we take seriously the UN statistic that civilian deaths make up 90% of wartime casualties, then the Russians appear to have turned this statistic on its head as the military deaths in Ukraine on both sides likely totals around 400,000 or more. A single civilian death for every forty military deaths is hardly a genocide.

The bishops continue: “In Putin’s mind, there is no such thing as Ukraine, Ukrainian history, language, and independent Ukrainian church life. All matters Ukrainian are ideological constructs, fit to be eradicated.”

These words grossly oversimply the rich and complex history of both Ukraine and Russia, and they do not do justice to the actual views of Vladimir Putin. One can go back decades to the early post-Soviet days of the 1990s to see how all honest scholars viewed Ukraine. In his book, The Clash of Civilizations (1996), Samuel Huntington warned of future conflict in Ukraine due to its radical ethnic divisions. Huntington pointed out that while northwestern Ukraine is populated by ethnic Ukrainians speaking the Ukrainian language and sharing in a Ukrainian culture, southeastern Ukraine is populated by ethnic Russians speaking the Russian language with historic ties to Russia itself. These ethnic divisions were most apparent in Ukrainian election results where one ethnic group typically voted for one candidate while the other voted for his opponent. Just imagine if everyone east of the Mississippi was a Democrat and everyone west was a Republican. How long could a nation like that stay together? Once one side felt that democratic elections no longer reflected the will of the people, there was bound to be a split – and that’s precisely what happened in 2014 when the moderate government of Ukraine was overthrown and replaced by a staunchly pro-Western government. What’s more, leaked audio even revealed that US officials chose who would run the new government! Given all this, vast numbers of ethnic Russians in southeastern Ukraine gave up on Ukrainian "democracy" and voted to rejoin Russia. Since 2014, Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson have all voted to leave Ukraine. It was a secession that led to a civil war, but unlike the southern secession of 1860s America, a major power has stepped in to support the secessionists and there’s little that can be done to stop it. If anything, continued fighting will only lead to more ethnic Russian lands returning to Mother Russia.

According to the bishops: “By calling all Ukrainians (who refuse to be Russians and accept Russian rule) “Nazis,” Putin dehumanizes them. Nazis (in this case Ukrainians) have no right to exist. They need to be annihilated, killed.”

Putin was not the first to point out Ukraine's problem with far-right ideologies from 1930s-40s Germany. Years ago the US Congress explicitly included in Ukraine aid legislation that no US funds could be given to such groups, the existence of which was well-known and well-documented. Canada was recently rocked by a major scandal when its legislature gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian SS soldier who fought against the Russians in World War II. It appears they forgot who was fighting against the Russians in those days, and what virulent ideology they supported. Once again, the Ukrainian bishops do not tell the truth. What's more, they slander Vladimir Putin by saying he thinks that all Ukrainians today support this ideology. Their argument then makes the dramatic jump to genocide in order to justify their earlier false claim that Russia wants to murder every man, woman, and child in Ukraine. Does Russia want to bring to justice those who foster such an ideology? Absolutely. We all should. There is no place in this world for the kind of hate we saw in 1940s Germany or the same kind of hate we see among some Ukrainians today. 

The bishops argue: “It is worth mentioning that every Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory leads to the eradication of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, any independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and to the suppression of other religions and all institutions and cultural expressions that do not support Russian hegemony.”

In truth the Catholic Church in Ukraine has very little to fear from Russia. If we take Huntington – and other honest scholars – as our guide, any Russian territorial expansion will only be in lands populated by ethnic Russians. Contrary to what Putin critics say, Vladimir Putin has no interest in rebuilding the Soviet Union. If there is one thing we can say about Putin, it is that he despises ideologies. He believed that Soviet ideology did irreparable harm to Russia, stating that the fall of the Soviet Union was a “geopolitical catastrophe” only insofar as it left Russian citizens living in countries now independent of Russia. The fact is that the atheist Soviet communists left its lands poisened with artificial borders that would lead to war if they ever lost power. It was an intential ticking bomb meant to destroy those within the USSR who defeated communism. Vladimir Putin is rectifying the fall of the Soviet Union - not by rebuilding it but by reuniting separated Russians with their homeland. This of course means that Russia has no interest in conquering western Ukraine. Kiev is on Russia’s radar, but only in that Russia will seek a regime change that results in Ukraine declaring geopolitical neutrality, thus ending the danger a third world war. Given that the Ukrainian Catholic Church is located largely in northwestern Ukraine, far from any possible Russian territorial interests, the Catholic Church has little to fear.

The bishops continue: “Recent history has demonstrated that with Putin there will be no true negotiations. Ukraine negotiated away its nuclear arsenal in 1994… In return Ukraine received security guarantees regarding its territorial integrity (including Crimea) and independence, which Putin was obliged to respect. The 1994 Budapest memorandum signed by Russia, the US, and the UK is not worth the paper on which it was written. So it will be with any agreement ‘negotiated’ with Putin’s Russia.”

Recent history showed us that Ukraine had a chance for peace early on in the war. All Russia asked for was Ukrainian neutrality. There were no demands for denazification and no demands that Ukraine give up its military or its territory. If Ukraine declared neutrality, Russia would withdraw its forces. It's all but certain that Russians would have seethed had this deal gone through, but that’s what deal-making is all about. In a good deal, no one walks away getting everything they hoped for. As a token of goodwill, Russia withdrew its forces from Kiev. Ukraine responded by walking away from the peace deal and plunging its country into a suicidal war. This, however, is not the first agreement Ukraine broke. Prior to Russia’s entry into the war, which actually began in 2014, Ukraine entered into two peace agreements – the Minsk I and Minsk II accords. Ukraine broke the first treaty by launching a surprise invasion of eastern Ukraine, and its leaders (along with the former leaders of France and Germany) later told us that Ukraine never intended to carry out the second. Indeed, they have openly told us that the peace deals where meant only as a temporary truce so that Ukraine could arm itself and resume the war at a later date. Any discussion of the Budapest memorandum is red herring that distracts us from the multitude of agreements that Ukraine itself has betrayed. If anything, the Budapest memorandum was betrayed by the Western governments who backed not one, but two, Ukrainian coups in 2004 and 2014. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is ultimately a response to this Western betrayal, not a war of unprovoked territorial conquest. The Ukrainian bishops, however, tell us nothing of this history.

The bishops conclude by saying: “Ukrainians… believe in truth, God’s truth. They are convinced that God’s truth will prevail.”

As we’ve seen again and again in this article, the statement by the Ukrainian Catholic bishops was filled with dangerous logical fallacies, key omissions of fact, and a dose of mistruth and calumny. To invoke “God’s truth” as the conclusion of its statement is, in the opinion of this author, borderline blasphemous.

Pope Francis did exactly the right thing in calling for negotiations. Rather than tacitly denounce the Holy Father, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops should “speak truth to power” in Kiev. They know, however, that if they do so, Zelensky might just begin to persecute the Catholic Church as he has persecuted Ukraine’s historical Orthodox church. And so they make statements that endanger the planet with nuclear escalation. We must not listen to cowardly warmongers in miters. It’s time for the Ukrainian people – and its bishops – to listen and follow the instructions of the Holy Father.