The wife of the commander of the Azov battalion greeted Pope Francis at the end of the general audience in St. Peter’s Square, and asked him to put pressure on Putin to allow the evacuation of the soldiers barricaded in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol besieged by Russian forces.
At the end of the catechesis, at the moment of the so-called «hand kiss», Bergoglio greeted Kateryna Prokopenko, wife of the commander of Denis Prokopenko, commander of the Ukrainian battalion, accompanied by the wife of another officer of the same battalion, Yuliya Fedosiuk. The Avoz battalion, accused of neo-Nazi sympathies, has been leading the resistance inside the Azovstal steel mill for weeks. The women are in these days in Italy guests of the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See Andrii Yurash.
“We asked the pope to come to Ukraine and talk to Putin and tell him to let them go,” said Yuliya Fedosiuk, 29, wife of soldier Arseniy Fedosivk at the end of the audience. As a “third party”, the pope is the hope of the two women, he can guarantee that the Russian president “lets them pass through humanitarian corridors”. The pope “said that he will pray for us and that he does everything possible”. The fear, explained the woman, “is that the Russian Federation will not allow them to go to Ukraine” at the end of the evacuation: “They are afraid of being tortured and killed”. In the steel plant, Yuliya Fedosiuk reported, “the conditions are terrible: few supplies, no more food, no water, no medicines. We told the pope that there are 700 wounded soldiers, with amputations and other problems, many have died and we cannot bury them in a Christian way “:” They must be evacuated immediately “.
The greeting with the pope lasted “five minutes” at the end of the general audience in St. Peter’s Square: the two women spoke in English with the pope, who held their hands.
Kateryna Prokopenko, 27, wife of Azov’s commander Denis Prokopenko, said: “I can’t even explain what I felt at that moment. I was nervous, it was a historical omentum and we hope it will help the life of our husbands in Azovstal. We hope this meeting gives us a chance to save their lives. Now we await the action of the pope, of his delegation, our soldiers are ready to be evacuated to a third country, they are ready to surrender their weapons, and we are all ready to help them. We will do everything possible to save them ».
In recent days, Metropolitan Onufrij, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church affiliated with the patriarchate of Moscow and all the Russias, also appealed to President Vladimir Putin to allow “all those who wish to have the opportunity to leave the city of Mariupol, both civilian and military “, to accept” Christianly the procedure for evacuating the Ukrainian garrison from Mariupol “and to allow” encircled civilians, police, border guards and military personnel to enter the territory controlled by Ukraine or the territory of third countries. Many countries would be honored to play the role of mediator in this operation. Please – Onufrij wrote to Putin – choose one in the name of the risen Christ ».
Pope Francis arrived at the general audience sitting aboard the usual white jeep, and took a tour among the faithful present in St. Peter’s Square to greet them, as already last Wednesday, before sitting on the armchair placed in the churchyard of the Vatican basilica. In recent days, for the first time Bergoglio, who has been suffering from a flare-up of knee pain in recent weeks, appeared in a wheelchair. The pontiff made the short journey between the jeep and the armchair on foot, although he moved with difficulty assisted by his collaborators. “I would like to apologize because today to greet you I will not be able to go to you because of the knee which is still sick”, the pope told the faithful at the end of the catechesis, “you will have to walk to me but it is the same, I receive you with my heart in hand: but it is the same ».
Francis continued a cycle on old age focusing today’s catechesis on the biblical figure of Judith, who as a young man, “thanks to her faith, her beauty and her cunning”, slaughters the “dictator” Holofernes and saves the city of Betulia, and then he returns to his city, “where he lives a beautiful old age of up to one hundred and five years”. «Giuditta lived more than a hundred years, a particular blessing. But it is not uncommon today to have so many years left to live after the retirement season. How to interpret, how to make use of this time we have available? I am retiring today and it will be many years, what can I do, how can I grow in authority in holiness in wisdom? “, The pope asked, exhorting not to see in the material” goods “but in the” good “that they have sown there. ‘legacy of the elderly: “Of course, there is a joyful and tiring commitment to look after grandchildren, and today grandparents play a very large role in the family and for the family, but we know that today children are always born less, and parents are often more distant, more subject to travel, with unfavorable work and home situations. Sometimes they are even more reluctant to entrust their grandparents with educational spaces, granting only those strictly related to the need for assistance. And someone said to me, a little smiling with irony, “today grandparents in this socio-economic situation have become more important because they have retirement!”… ». And, instead, Giusitta’s example says something else: “Judith becomes a widow early and has no children, but, as an elderly woman, she is capable of living a season of fullness and serenity, in the awareness of having lived the mission that the Lord had entrusted her. For her it is the time to leave the good legacy of wisdom, tenderness, gifts for the family and the community: a legacy of good and not just of goods. When we think of inheritance – the pope remarked – sometimes we think of goods and not of the good that was done in old age and that was sown, that good that is the best inheritance we can leave “. The biblical heroine, who frees her servant of hers in her old age, “is not a pensioner who sadly lives her emptiness: she is a passionate old woman who fills the time that God gives her with gifts.” And inspired by her, the pope recommended reading the book that the Bible dedicates to her – “he is small, there are ten pages, no more” – “and read this story of a courageous woman who ends with tenderness and generosity, a woman at the height: I would like all our grandmothers to be, courageous and wise, and they leave us legacy not from money but from the wisdom sown in her grandchildren ».
At the end of the audience, the pope made an appeal for Sri Lanka: “I address a special thought to the people of Sri Lanka, in particular to the young people, who in recent times have made their cry heard in the face of social and economic challenges and problems. of the country. I join the religious authorities in exhorting all parties to maintain a peaceful attitude, without giving in to violence. I appeal to all those who have responsibilities to listen to the aspirations of the people, guaranteeing full respect for human rights and civil liberties ”.
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