Russian President Vladimir Putin must have been nervous. Pope Francis’s foreign policy has been agreeable to Moscow. But ominous clouds were on the horizon.
In May, the Vatican announced a meeting for July 5-6 in Rome for the leadership of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches. The head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the synod council which governs the Church and the UGCC metropolitan archbishops were invited to meet with Pope Francis and the senior members of the Roman Curia. The official reason was to support the UGCC “in the delicate situation in which Ukraine finds itself”.
