The German Cardinal made some reflections on the war during an interview with the Catholic news agency Kath.net: “pray for peace, that God may move the hearts of the powerful and the consciences of those profiteering from war to repentance and conversion.”
Newsroom (18/03/2022 8:19 PM, Gaudium Press) In strong statements published on Kath.net, and reported in Italian by Marco Tosatti, Cardinal Gerhard Müller warned that nothing “justifies the decision of the Kremlin autocrat to blanket Ukraine now with a third war aimed at the total enslavement of those people at the price of destroying human lives and devastating cultural and infrastructural values.”
Same people professing Christianity
The Cardinal, after recalling that there are the “big Russians” of Moscow, the “little Russians” of Ukraine and the “white Russians” of Minsk, stressed that it is not conceivable to follow “Cain as a model for the murder of his brother Abel.”He noted that the vast majority of Russians and Ukrainians have professed Christianity “for more than 1,000 years”, and being a Christian leads to rejecting “war as a legitimate means of politics.”
The Cardinal justifies his support for Ukraine, even with weapons, considering that just defence is unavoidable on certain circumstances: “Taking into account the ethical difference between the aggressor and the victim of aggression, the German bishops underlined the principle of ‘just defence’ and thus also explicitly justified the delivery of weapons from the West to invaded Ukraine. However, it is also the task of the bishops, as servants of the Word of Christ, to continue challenging both the military and political levels.”
The Cardinal invites bishops and faithful to “pray for peace, that God may move the hearts of the powerful to understanding and the consciences of those who are profiteering from war to repentance and conversion. The Church, as a community of faith, hope and love, does not fight with military weapons which kill and wound ‘men of flesh and blood.’ The followers of Christ fight with ‘spiritual weapons,’ that is, with ‘righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, that is, the Word of God against ‘principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil'(cf. Eph 6:10-20).”
Compiled by Gustavo Kralj
