"I saw it on the news. What can I say? I am very sorry; I thought the matter could have been resolved differently. Instead, this news surprises us and fills us with sorrow" the cardinal told reporters in Rome.

The sudden death of Navalny has reverberated globally, prompting sorrow and accusations against Russian authorities.

Navalny, known for his opposition to President Vladimir Putin, died at 47 in the Arctic penal colony IK-3, where he was serving a 19-year sentence.

Navalny was one of the most prominent faces of Russian opposition to Mr Putin's regime. He was serving his sentence in a penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) north of Moscow.

Western governments called on Russia to "urgently clarify" the circumstances surrounding Navalny's demise.

International figures, including G7 foreign ministers and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have condemned Navalny's death and criticised Putin's regime.

In the immediate aftermath, the Kremlin said the president had been informed.

Mr Putin has not publicly commented since the Russian prison service announced on Friday that Navalny had taken ill and died.

Foul play asserted

Despite requests, Navalny's mother Lyudmila has not been able to retrieve his body. Reports suggest it won't be released until a post-mortem examination is completed.

Lyudmila was reportedly told by the prison service he died on Friday after collapsing and falling unconscious during a walk.

Navalny's team alleges foul play, accusing Russian authorities of orchestrating his death. They claim the Russian authorities are purposely withholding his body so they can "cover traces".

Russian officials reject assertions of wrongdoing, dismissing them as biased.

The death of Alexei Navalny has sparked protests across Russia, leading to over 400 arrests according to independent Russian human rights monitoring group OVD-Info.

OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, said arrests had occurred in 36 cities with the largest numbers in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Sources

Vatican News

BBC News

Aljazeera

Zuppi is a prominent Italian cardinal known for his close association with the pontiff.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni announced the development on Saturday, revealing that the specific details and timeline for the mission are currently being evaluated.

"I can confirm that Pope Francis has entrusted Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops Conference, with a mission to contribute to easing tensions in the conflict in Ukraine. The Holy Father holds on to the hope that this mission can pave the way for peace."

The announcement follows Pope Francis' recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican.

After the meeting, Zelenskyy expressed scepticism about the possibility of any mediation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Secret peace mission

Pope Francis said at the end of April that the Vatican was involved in a secret peace mission to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Speaking to the press travelling with him, the pontiff said: "Everyone is interested in the path of peace. I am willing, I am willing to do whatever needs to be done. Even now a mission is underway, but it's not public yet, we'll see...

"When it's public, then I'll speak about it."

Both Ukrainian and Russian officials quickly denied that negotiations were taking place. Still, a close papal aide confirmed the pope's statement in an interview with an Italian news outlet published earlier this month.

Bruni said Pope Francis hopes the operation, which will be carried out in agreement with the Secretariat of State, "can initiate paths of peace."

According to Il Sismografo, an Italian blog, the governments of Ukraine and Russia have replied to the Vatican and declared their availability in principle.

Francis has repeatedly denounced the war, warned against a buildup of weapons in the conflict and prayed for the suffering Ukrainian people. However, he generally shied away from blaming Putin in his many comments on the war.

The pontiff has expressed his willingness to visit Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, with the intention of aiding the peace process. However, he has stipulated that such a visit would be possible only if he could also make a corresponding visit to Moscow.

Sources

AP News

Catholic News Agency

Kyiv Post

Il Sismografo

CathNews New Zealand

The priest, who asked not to be named, also dismissed President Vladimir Putin's threats of nuclear war as "just words".

"Although I'm not a military person, I don't think the Russian army could even use nuclear weapons — and if it did, this would be much more dangerous for Russia itself than anyone else," the unnamed priest said.

"People are certainly frightened here, particularly since Catholic parishioners and clergy could now be called up, beginning with those who've done military service. But I don't think there's much to fear from Putin, who's just coming out with words."

Street protests erupted in Russia after Putin's 21 September order for a national call-up of 300,000 reservists after setbacks in the Ukraine war.

The priest told Catholic News Service that students and young people had "reacted very emotionally" to the mobilisation order, with many debating its practical consequences.

"Some young Catholics have already left the country, and more are doing so now," the priest told CNS.

"The mass mobilisation will very much affect church life here, particularly since many Catholics are strongly against the war and won't want to take part. But those with military training up to age 50 may well have to go, while the order could soon be extended to others who haven't even done military service."

In his speech, Putin said his "special military operation" was continuing to liberate Ukraine's eastern Donbas region from a "neo-Nazi regime".

The Russian leader commented that his country would use "all means at its disposal," including nuclear weapons, to resist attempts by Western countries to "weaken, divide and ultimately destroy" it, while aggressively imposing "their will and pseudo-values".

He added that the partial mobilisation would initially concern "only military reservists" with "specific occupational specialities and corresponding experience," who would be given additional training for active service.

The Russian priest told CNS most protesters had previously been against the war and that most soldiers had been recruited from Russia's more remote regions.

The priest told CNS that a "much larger group" of previously undecided citizens could also come out in opposition once the draft gained momentum and the war was "brought closer to people in the main cities".

Sources

CruxNow

Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West he is not bluffing about using the weapons of mass destruction.

He ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine.

Without naming Russia or Putin, Francis told the crowd in St Peter's Square last Wednesday that even thinking of using nuclear weapons is "madness".

Ukrainians are being subjected to savageness, monstrosities and torture, he added. They are a "noble" people being martyred.

He then told the crowd of a conversation he had on Tuesday with Cardinal Konrad Krajewski.

The Polish cardinal (pictured with his ambulance) leads Francis's aid work in Ukraine.

Krajewski had to run and take cover after coming under light gunfire last week, Francis said. At the time, the cardinal had been delivering aid with a Catholic bishop, a Protestant bishop and a Ukrainian soldier.

Cardinal Krajewski also visited mass graves outside Izium, in northeast Ukraine.

"He (Krajewski) told me of the pain of these people, the savage acts, the monstrosity, the tortured bodies they find. Let us unite with these people, so noble and martyred," Francis told the crowd.

Ukrainian officials say they have found hundreds of bodies. Some have their hands tied behind their backs. They are buried in territory recaptured from Russian forces.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says their bodies provide proof of war crimes,

Of the 111 civilian bodies exhumed by Wednesday, four showed signs of torture according to the head of investigative police in the Kharkiv region where Izium is located.

Russia has consistently denied its troops have committed war crimes since it invaded Ukraine in February.

On Monday last week, two days before the exhumations, the Kremlin rejected allegations of such abuses in Kharkiv region. The allegations are a "lie", the Kremlin said.

A contrasting world view

After discussing the situation in Ukraine with the crowd, Francis then spoke of his trip to Kazakhstan which took place early last week.

The central Asian country gave up its nuclear weapons in 1991 after its independence from the Soviet Union.

"This was courageous," Francis told the crowd.

"At a time in this tragic [Ukraine] war where some are thinking of nuclear weapons - which is madness - this country said 'no' to nuclear weapons from the start."

Rather than use the Russian president's name, Francis instead referred to Putin as "some potentate" who had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an "infantile and destructive aggression" under the guise of "anachronist claims of nationalistic interests".

"From the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread.

"We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past," the pope said.

The "icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all," Francis said.

Moscow denies targeting civilians in its so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine.

It claims this "operation" - aka "war" to the rest of the world including the pope - is meant not to occupy territory but to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.

The Vatican, which in recent years has forged unprecedented new relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, has offered itself as a potential mediator.

So far, the offer hasn't been taken up, although the pope has had several invitations to visit as a messenger of peace.

Invitations for peace talks have been proffered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Ukraine's Byzantine-rite Catholic Church, and Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, Andriy Yurash.

Francis has spoken on the phone with Zelensky and Shevchuk.

Although Francis has told reporters the idea of such a visit is being considered, he added that no plans have been made yet.

Forging peace in a savage war

It is unusual for the Vatican to directly challenge aggressors. Instead, it tends to work on the side of keeping open options for dialogue.

That may be why to date, despite his obvious concern and outrage over the war, Francis has referred to Russia directly only in prayers, such as during a special global event for peace on March 25.

"Now in the night of the war that is fallen upon humanity, let us not allow the dream of peace to fade," he said on that occasion.

He also criticised the armaments industry and expressed distress at the fading enthusiasm for peace that emerged after World War Two.

The clash of interests and ideologies have "re-emerged powerfully in the seductions of autocracy, new forms of imperialism (and) widespread aggressiveness," he said.

Source

• Global News
• Reuters
• Image: YahooNews

Taking to the pulpit Kirill told the people that spiritual danger justified his country's invasion of Ukraine.

Depicting the war in spiritual terms, he said, "We have entered into a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance."

An unnamed world power is posing a "test for the loyalty" of countries by demanding they hold gay pride parades to join a global club of nations with its own ideas of freedom and "excess consumption.

"Pride parades are designed to demonstrate that sin is one variation of human behaviour," he said.

President Putin's longtime ally told Ukranian and Russian Orthodox worshippers in a homily that Russia's "military operation" in Ukraine was about "which side of humanity God will be on": Russia's side, or Western countries that embrace more progressive values.

Despite his focus on sin, Kirill made no mention in his homily of Russia's widespread invasion and its bombardment of civilian targets.

Many Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and elsewhere are appalled by Kirill's stance.

For centuries the Moscow Patriarch claimed the ultimate loyalty of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, even though the latter retained ample autonomy.

Even as recently as three years ago, many priests, monks and faithful had remained loyal to him, even with the formation of a more nationalist, Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018 and 2019.

Kirill's recent comments, however, have led many Ukrainian Orthodox bishops to authorise their priests not to commemorate him in prayers during public worship services.

This is a symbolically important statement in Orthodox tradition, which puts a premium on the faithful being in communion with their divinely ordained hierarchy.

Elsewhere, a Stockholm-based professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism says Kirill's comments show him to be in a "golden cage."

He said Kirill helped "supply the ideology" that Putin has used to justify Russian hegemony over the region. In return, the church has received strong government support.

While many Orthodox and other religious conservatives, including in Ukraine, share Kirill's stance on sexual ethics, Ukrainians and Ukrainian Orthodox are under attack, are suffering, and are afraid for the future for the nation," a US commentator says.

"None of that is reflected in the sermon. If rockets are falling on Kharkiv and Kyiv and the patriarch starts talking about gay parades, it seems like something is odd here."

Source

• Newsweek
• Religion News Service
• Image: Euronews

If he gives in to this ultimate vertigo, he will not fail to invoke Seraphim of Sarov, the Slavic Francis of Assisi whom Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, consecrated as patron saint of Russia's nuclear arsenal.

A controversial characteristic? The two potentates don't need anyone's help in order to be self-congratulatory. The pact that has bound them for 20 years has long had its share of kitschy devilry that is unintentionally comical. The war in Ukraine reveals its Luciferian dimension.

On February 23, the day before the invasion, Kirill issued a statement from his residence at the Danilov Monastery, congratulating Putin on the celebration of the "Defender of the Fatherland" holiday.

In his homily at Christ the Saviour Cathedral on the 27th, in the middle of the offensive, Kirill castigated the "forces of evil" that wanted to prevent Putin from achieving "the unity of all Russians."

The Sunday before Lent is known in the Orthodox Church as Last Judgment Sunday. The civil and liturgical calendars collide in the deadly ballet for the latest heads of Church and State to have emerged from the homo sovieticus.

A legacy of the totalitarian era

This sacrilegious alliance is a legacy of the totalitarian era. After 1989, only the Patriarchate and the KGB have remained as institutions in Russia. But these are old ties.

Under Brezhnev, Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad (who died in 1978), who was a child of persecution, traded international collaboration for internal moderation.

His followers occupied the major seats of the Soviet Union, the vicariate of Moscow, and the bishoprics of Minsk and Kyiv.

Among them was Kirill of Smolensk, who took over the Russian Church's Department for External Church Relations prior to being elected patriarch in 2009.

The ascensions of Kirill and Vladimir Putin have been parallel. The pontificate of one and the reign of the other eventually merged.

In order to grow with the new tsar, the patriarch not only blessed the political-religious mechanism of the Kremlin, but also maximised it.

He became a steward of minority faiths, a codifier of the sacred and morality, a chaplain to institutions and oligarchs, absolving widespread corruption while carving out a personal fortune.

Imperial restoration

But Kirill's crucial mission in the service of imperial restoration also played out abroad. The Patriarchate of Moscow is the only entity that still covers the entire territory of the former USSR.

Kirill has endorsed Putin's diplomatic aggressiveness. He has put into practice the ideology of the "pan-Russian world," ensured docile hierarchies in Belarus and Ukraine, maintained ethnic dioceses from Estonia to Kazakhstan and united the refractory branches from emigration to the West, through bribes, if necessary.

But to assert his desire for power, Kirill will end up breaking Orthodox unity.

He has conflated the capacity for domination and its resulting damage ever since 2016 when he refused to participate in the great pan-Orthodox council convened by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

He then turned to the Holy Land, where he sought to instrumentalise the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Embarking on the war in Syria, he tried to subjugate the Patriarchate of Antioch.

Taking advantage of the inroads made by Russia's Wagner Group, a shadowy group of private military contractors helping the Kremlin exert its influence in Africa, he tried to torpedo the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

And when Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, primate of the worldwide Orthodox Church, prophetically granted Ukraine the status of an independent Church in 2019, Kirill declared it "apostate" and entered into schism.

But this time it's too much.

Even Metropolitan Onufriy, Kirill's legate who heads the part of the Ukrainian Church that remains faithful to Big Brother, has just called for patriotic resistance. It was clear that deprived of its significant Ukrainian base, the Patriarchate of Moscow would become just another Orthodox Church.

It is done.

It is now up to Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis to act together so that the terrible conflict in Ukraine does not reawaken the murderous divisions of the past between Orthodox, Latin Catholics and Greek Catholics.

The future of Europe is at stake - the future of the lived Gospel.

• Jean-François Colosimo is an Orthodox theologian and historian of religions. He studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Fordham University in New York and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

During his general audience on February 23, the pope called for people to fast for peace on March 2, Ash Wednesday. He prayed that "the Queen of Peace will preserve the world from the madness of war.

"I have great pain in my heart over the worsening situation in Ukraine" Pope Francis said in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall.

"Despite the diplomatic efforts over the past few weeks, increasingly alarming scenarios are opening up. Like me, many people throughout the world are feeling anguish and concern. Once again, the peace of all is threatened by partisan interests.

"I would like all those who have the political responsibility to make a serious examination of conscience before God. He is the God of peace and not of war. He wants us to be brothers and not enemies.

"I pray that all parties involved will refrain from any action that will cause even more suffering for people, destabilising coexistence among nations and undermining international law".

The pope's comments came after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a televised address on February 21 that he would recognise the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk as independent entities.

These regions, which are run by Russian-backed separatists, include land currently held by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Western countries responded to the announcement by unveiling sanctions targeting Russian banks and politicians.

Ukraine's charitable Caritas organisation has said it is preparing for a possible humanitarian crisis should there be an invasion.

Speaking to Crux, Vladyslav Shelokov, Communication and Resource Mobilisation Director for Caritas Ukraine, said the deterioration of the situation into war "would exponentially deepen the already existing humanitarian situation.

"It would be a big tragedy not just for people who fled their houses escaping from blasts and shells, but also a huge tragedy for all our country", he said.

"Potentially millions of people" would find themselves in need, Shelokov added.

Should a full war erupt, Caritas would need to step up efforts it has already been making in conflict areas since the 2014 unrest. They have been organising shelter for the displaced and providing water, food, hygiene kits, medical care and support.

Caritas, Shelokov said, has been providing these services for the past eight years "and we are also preparing to respond in the same manner this time, in case of escalation, but we hope and pray that our experience in rapid response in deterioration of war will not be applied into action".

Sources

CBCP News

Crux Now

Another constitutional change he proposes was that the constitution's amendments should also stipulate that marriage is a union of a man and woman.

The State Duma, Russia's lower parliamentary house, approved the constitutional reform bill's first reading in January.

Ahead of a second and key reading set for next week, Putin submitted 24 pages of amendments.

"The president's amendments are the result of his dialogue with representatives of all factions (and) civil society," State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin. said.

Putin's amendments are in line with a speech he made on same-sex marriage a fortnight ago.

At that time he said Russia would not legalise the practice while he is in power.

"As far as ‘parent number 1' and ‘parent number 2' goes, I've already spoken publicly about this and I'll repeat it again: As long as I'm president this will not happen. There will be dad and mum," Putin said.

Other proposed amendments Putin proposes include a reference to the "historical truth" amendment.

That amendment would emphasise the Soviet Union's role in World War II, during which some 27 million Soviets lost their lives fighting Nazi Germany.

Another amendment would forbid turning over any Russian territory, which could strengthen Russia's claims to Crimea, a Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014, and to the Kuril Islands, an archipelago it administers.

Some of the islands also claimed by Japan.

Source

• The Times of Israel
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Israpundit

"Does she want to become an Orthodox Christian?" Putin said when Stone suggested the idea during a sit-down in Moscow on June 19.

"We'll make her that [Orthodox]," Stone said during a rambling conversation about young people and American culture, according to a transcript of the interview posted online by the Kremlin on Friday.

Stone has interviewed Putin multiple times, including for his 2016 documentary "Ukraine on Fire." Read more

After meeting with Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, Parolin - who is the Vatican Secretary of State and its top diplomat - said the meetings so far have been intense. He offered his thanks to the Russian authorities for their cordial welcome.

In their talks on topics of international interest, Parolin reiterated the Holy See's desire to find "just and lasting solutions" for the global conflicts raging in "the Middle East, Ukraine and various other regions of the world.

"If, in such dramatic situations, the Holy See is more directly active in the effort to promote initiatives aimed at alleviating the suffering of peoples, at the same time it clearly expresses the appeal that the common good prevail;

"... principally justice, lawfulness, the truth of facts and the abstention of manipulating them, and the safe and dignified living conditions for civilian populations," Parolin said.

During the press conference following their talks, the Holy See and the Russian Federation signed an Agreement waiving visa requirements for holders of diplomatic passports.

Parolin and Lavrov called this a sign of the two countries' desire to continue to work together on bilateral relations and issues of international concern.

On Wednesday Parolin met with President Vladimir Putin to discuss international crises including Syria and the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

Putin later reported a "trusting and constructive dialogue" between Russia and the Holy See.

Parolin's visit represents an increasing "eastward facing" diplomacy under Pope Francis's direction.

Source

• CNA
• Catholic World Report
• Catholic News Service
• National Catholic Register
• News.VA
• The Tablet
• Image: CruxNow