THE PAPAL VISIT TO UKRAINE / News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Over the strong objections of the Russian Orthodox Church, Pope John Paul II will visit Ukraine in late June, hoping once again that gestures of respect will succeed where dialogue has not.

11.06.2001 (10:35) // Religious Information Service of Ukraine
Source: Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service, June 8, 2001

   However, unlike his earlier visits to predominantly Orthodox Greece and Romania, the pope is not scheduled to meet privately with any Orthodox leaders, let alone lead a prayer service with them.

  Only one ecumenical meeting is scheduled during the June 23-27 trip, and that includes representatives from all of Ukraine's Christian communities as well as Jewish and Muslim leaders.

  In Ukraine, Pope John Paul faces the delicate task of balancing his remarks on two subjects he feels very strongly about: ecumenism and martyrdom.

  ``The pope is going with humility and with open arms to do all he can for ecumenism, for the unity of the church,'' papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Ukrainian journalists in May.

  But the primary purpose of the trip, he said, is to pay tribute to ``a church which suffered in an indescribable way for years. These people have a right to welcome the pope.''

  Under Soviet communism, the activity of the Latin-rite Catholic community was severely restricted; bishops were forbidden to exercise their ministry, seminaries were closed and the faithful were scattered.

  The country's larger Eastern Catholic Church was outlawed altogether. All of its bishops were arrested and church property was either used by the government or given to the Russian Orthodox. The priests, religious and faithful who escaped arrest or deportation were forced to practice their faith secretly.

  Pope John Paul will pay homage to those who, at great personal risk, made sure the church survived five decades of Soviet persecution and will honor those who have worked to make it flourish in the 10 years since Ukraine declared its independence.

  But where Catholics see the victory of faith and freedom, some Orthodox leaders see a wolf in sheep's clothing stealing their faithful.

  The Russian Orthodox complain that the rebirth of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has led to a sharp drop in Orthodox Church membership, and they charge that Catholics have used violence to reclaim property.

  Any sign of papal encouragement of the Catholics could be seen by the Orthodox as a blessing of what they term ``Catholic expansionism.''

  However, in some ways, the Vatican shows signs of becoming tired of complaints from the Russian Orthodox Church.

  When visiting Ukrainian journalists asked Navarro-Valls why the pope would visit Ukraine against the wishes of Moscow Patriarch Alexei II, the spokesman responded that Ukrainians invited the pope and want him to visit.

  ``We are talking about Ukraine, not Russia. It is a sovereign state,'' he said.

  In April, Pope John Paul sent a personal letter to Orthodox Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, Ukraine, who had issued an open letter to the pope urging him to postpone the visit indefinitely or risk serious damage to Orthodox-Catholic relations.

  In the letter, the pope told the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is in union with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, that he hoped his trip would make his respect for the Orthodox evident, as well as his commitment ``to continue following the way of dialogue in truth and charity.''

  But the pope also said he was happy that he would ``finally, after repeated invitations,'' be able to visit Ukraine's Catholics who are ``so numerous and well-rooted in the country.''

  Catholic-Orthodox relations in Ukraine are complicated by the fact that two independent Orthodox Churches are well established and a third recently has been set up. The Russian Orthodox Church does not recognize any of them as legitimate.

  Church and government leaders see the religious divisions not just as an ecumenical problem, but as a barrier to the nation's recovery from the social, economic and moral mess the Soviets left behind.

  ``The schisms remain an obstacle in consolidating the identity of Ukrainian society and strengthening morality in the nation,'' said Nina Kowalska, Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican.

  With the transition to a market economy and privatization of state-owned farms and businesses, a few people -- including former Soviet officials – have gotten rich while the standard of living for most Ukrainians has declined.

  Corruption, organized crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide and an unusually high abortion rate are pressing social problems.

  ``In post-communist countries, the problem is not just trying to strengthen religious values, but human values,'' said Latin-rite Cardinal Marian Jaworski of Lviv. ``The `homo Sovieticus' had a totalitarian mentality. The people need to discover the values of tolerance, pluralism, responsibility and dialogue.''

  The need for common efforts to bring Gospel values to bear on public life are expected to be part of almost every speech Pope John Paul makes in Ukraine, a country he has never visited, but to which he has close ties.

  As a young bachelor and officer in the Austrian army, Karol Wojtyla Sr., the pope's father, was stationed in Lviv, 1901-1904.

  In addition, the pope and Cardinal Jaworski are long-time friends. In 1967 when the future pope was called to Rome to become a cardinal, then-Father Jaworski took his place on a pastoral visit to Olsztyn. En route, the priest was involved in a train accident and lost his left hand; Cardinal Jaworski now wears a black leather glove over a prosthetic hand.

  The Polish-Ukrainian border has shifted several times in the past 100 years, and despite Soviet efforts to move Poles out of Western Ukraine and Ukrainians out of eastern Poland, the region still has a significantly mixed population.

  People of Polish ancestry, like Cardinal Jaworski, who was born in Lviv, form the backbone of the Latin-rite church in Ukraine.

  According to the Ukrainian churches' papal trip press office, there are about 870,000 Latin-rite Catholics in the country and about 5.5 million Eastern Catholics. Ukraine's total population is about 50 million.

  The pope's schedule for Ukraine includes a careful balance of liturgies in the Latin and Byzantine rites.

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