America’s readers respond to an article by Terence Sweeney’s in which he says that supporting Pope Francis is fully compatible with being a “traditional” Catholic.

America has learned the meeting between the two religious leaders was first planned a week ago. It was not confirmed who initiated the exchange, but it was the first time the two have spoken since this war broke out.

The private secretary of Benedict XVI, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, has defended the former pope and criticised the Munich abuse report which made international headlines when it was released in January.

While Catholics generally are prone to religious switching, Black Catholics have the highest rates. Only 54 percent of U.S. Black Catholics who were raised in the faith remain so as adults.

The elderly “will be the ones to sound the alarm, the alert: ‘Be aware, this is corruption, it will bring you nothing,’” Pope Francis said during his general audience on March 16.

“Lord Jesus, born under the bombs of Kyiv, have mercy on us. Lord Jesus, dead in the arms of a mother in Kharkiv, have mercy on us.”