Vatican Representative: Ukraine needs national reconciliation

A tragic situation has come about in Ukraine when one part of the nation and its culture are oppressed, whereas what is needed is national reconciliation. It was declared by the Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine Claudio Gugerotti at the International Symposium in Rome, reports Radio of Vatican.

According to the representative of Vatican, the situation in Ukraine is tragic and “runs the risk of morphing into the systemic oppression of one part of the nation and its culture” against total silence of the international community.

Gugerotti underscored we are facing another nation “compelled to pay with virtually their own extermination for the game of the mighty.”

“A big task for Ukraine lies in national reconciliation, accepting internal differences as diversity, not as contradictions having blended with global and foreign political conflicts,” stated the Apostolic Nuncio.

In his opinion, “confessional splits in Ukraine are related to various political factors.”

Gugerotti has mentioned before it is no longer fashionable to speak about Ukraine out of political reasons, since it reminds the West about complicated relationships with Russia. In his opinion, the war in the East of Ukraine is being waged with Ukrainian separatists rather than Russian troops.

In January Ukrainian religious expert Liudmila Filipovich severely criticized Gugerotti for his trip to the uncontrolled part of Donbass, as well as donating money to Donbass civilians on both sides of the demarcation line. In Pope’s Nuncio to Ukrainian religious expert: Your logic leads to acknowledgement of civil war in Ukraine the representative of Vatican claimed there is no difference at all between two parts of the Ukrainian nation.

Earlier Catholic Bishop Ian Sobilo told about his meeting with one of the civil servants from the “unrecognized DNR” and separatists and concluded they are hardly different from the rest of Ukrainians, while propaganda has converted them into foes.