ROME — The Vatican’s equivalent of foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, said Tuesday that Pope Francis will “definitely go to Ukraine,” possibly as early as this summer.
Archbishop Gallagher said the pontiff will visit Kiev, perhaps following his July 24-30 trip to Canada. “It will be a question of seeing how Pope Francis feels after his trip to Canada, let’s see,” the prelate said at the Rome presentation of the upcoming August meeting of the Communion and Liberation movement in the northern Italian city of Rimini.
“I cannot say at the moment” whether Francis will go to Moscow, the archbishop stated. “He will definitely go to Kiev.”
Gallagher added the Rimini meeting will provide an opportunity to relaunch an appeal for diplomacy for peace.
“Now more than ever, the whole of humanity is called to promote the mentality of peace and human brotherhood,” he declared. “We cannot get used to living as if war were the norm.”
International diplomacy begins with “the observance of the various fundamental principles of international law: territorial integrity and inviolability, the right to self-determination, the right to live in security and peace, the right to defense,” he stated.
The Vatican’s confirmation of the pope’s fall travel belies rumors that circulated in early summer suggesting that the pontiff might be contemplating resigning due to health problems.
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