\n
VATICAN CITY , Dec 12 (AP) \u2014 Pope Francis on Sunday offered prayers for Ukraine, and urged dialogue and not weapons as Russia masses tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Francis didn\u2019t mention Russia by name in comments to the faithful during the traditional Sunday blessing in St. Peter\u2019s Square, but the implications seemed clear as he called for international dialogue to defuse the crisis.<\/p>\n
The pontiff prayed for \u201cdear Ukraine, for all its churches and religious communities and all of its people,\u201d and expressed hope that \u201ctensions would be resolved through serious international dialogue and not through arms.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vatican has been loathe to criticize Russia over its Ukraine policies for fear of alienating the Russian Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n
Just last week, Francis said he was hoping to meet in the not-too-distant future with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, following their historic 2016 encounter in Cuba.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters as he returned from a trip to Greece and Cyprus, Francis said he planned to meet next week with the Russian church\u2019s foreign envoy \u201cto agree on a possible meeting\u201d with Kirill. The pontiff noted that Kirill is due to travel in the coming weeks, but Francis said he was also \u201cready to go to Moscow\u201d even if diplomatic protocols weren\u2019t yet in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VATICAN CITY , Dec 12 (AP) \u2014 Pope Francis on Sunday offered prayers for Ukraine, and urged dialogue and not weapons as Russia masses tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine. Francis didn\u2019t mention Russia by name in comments to the faithful during the traditional Sunday blessing in St. Peter\u2019s Square, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-179135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}