Russia, Ukraine, and the Supreme Court: The Pope Speaks

The Pope was alone in front of his interviewer – a journalist from the Reuters agency – during the 90 minutes of the interview granted on the afternoon of July 2, 2022. 

Referring to Ukraine, Pope Francis explains that there have indeed been contacts between the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about a possible trip to Moscow. However, the first signals were not encouraging.

“It is possible, after my return from Canada, it is possible that I will manage to go to Ukraine,” the pope specified, and then who insisted: “The first thing to do is to go to Russia to try to help in one way or another, but I would like to go to both capitals.”

Then when asked about the United States and the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Argentine pontiff said he respected the decision but that he did not have enough information to talk about it “from a legal point of view.”

Incidentally, Pope Francis took the opportunity to reiterate his condemnation of abortion, comparing this practice to “hiring a hitman,” leading a few days later to an outcry from abortion supporters.

Conversely, when asked about the possibility of giving Communion to a pro-abortion politician – as it appears to have happened on June 29, when Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, attended Mass at Saint Peter's in Rome - the answer is more evasive and less precise: “When the Church, when a bishop loses its pastoral dimension, that poses a political problem, that's all I can say.”