CHURCH leaders have voiced concern at geopolitical uncertainties in Europe, as the US President, Donald Trump, held new talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to broker a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
“The signals sent by the American government to its allies in Europe have given the justified impression that we could be left to our own devices against foreign aggression,” the German RC Bishops’ Conference said in a statement after their spring plenary.
“Of course, we welcome a path to negotiations, ceasefire, and peace. But we consider it unacceptable when the aggressor and victim are placed on the same level in moral judgement and practical politics, and when military and civilian aid for an attacked country is used to impose one’s will ruthlessly and blackmail it over access to raw materials. . .
“A short-term peace agreement with Russia, with no reliable security guarantees for Ukraine, will not mean long-term peace in Europe. A dictated peace will rather increase threats to stability.”
The statement was published before the Bundestag’s approval on Tuesday of a massive increase in military spending, as part of a record 11.7-per-cent rise in defence expenditure across Europe.
The bishops expressed the fear that Ukraine was being forced into unjustified and “previously unthinkable” concessions, as President Trump abandoned an “80-year model of international liberal order” by withdrawing from multilateral commitments and overhauling US trade policy “with the help of drastic tariffs tailored exclusively to American interests”.
The Acting Chair of the council of Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the Rt Revd Kirsten Fehrs, said that Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine” rightly dominated “current perceptions”, but should not crowd out other pressing issues.
“We are at an extremely critical and vulnerable moment, especially after these foreign-policy shifts,” she said, after a visit to church communities in Poland last week. “As Churches, it is our mission to send out hope and strength in difficult times.”
Anxieties also continued over the combat readiness of NATO, as European heads of government continued discussing a possible peacekeeping mission. Earlier this month, the European Commission pledged €800 billion for a “ReArm Europe Plan”.
In Italy, Roman Catholic bishops called on governments to avoid “warlike rhetoric” and to rediscover “the value of diplomacy”. Spending on war was “contrary to reason”, they said, and diverted resources from families, healthcare, and education. Current concerns over security and defence should not “become the drumbeats of war”.
The Pope said that peace required “reflection, inner calm, and sense of complexity”. Religions could serve as peacemakers by “drawing on the spirituality of peoples” and rekindling “the desire for fraternity and justice”.
“Words are never just words: they are facts that shape human environments,” the Pope wrote in a letter from hospital, published on Tuesday in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “They can connect or divide, serve truth or exploit it. . . We must disarm words to disarm minds and disarm the earth.”
Russia has continued to attack Ukrainian cities with missiles, while making slow battlefield gains across the 600-mile front line. A temporary suspension of US military and intelligence aid for Kyiv came about after President Trump’s meeting with President Zelensky on 28 February (News, 7 March).
The Archbishop of Uppsala, Dr Martin Modéus, who is the Primate of the Church of Sweden, said that he had been moved when he saw how the Christian faith assisted “spiritual and existential stability” on a visit to Swedish peacekeeping troops in Latvia on their first-ever NATO deployment.
The Church of Sweden shared responsibility for preparing local populations “for crisis or war”, but, he said, peace would always remain the Church’s “fundamental task”.
The editor of the agency Independent Catholic News, Josephine Siedlecka, regretted that Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders in Britain were yet to issue statements on the current crisis. She said that many Christians awaited “pastoral guidance”.
“Besides a massive increase in defence spending, there’s talk, here and abroad, of bringing back military conscription,” Ms Siedlecka told the Church Times.
“With Europe rearming and preparing for war, our bishops should be speaking out — not aggressively, just reflecting on what Jesus would say.”
