This week on Inside The Vatican, Ricardo da Silva, S.J. interviews Anne Leahy, who once served as the Canadian ambassador to Russia and later to the Holy See, to understand Pope Francis and the Vatican in its relations with Russia.

In this episode of "Inside the Vatican," host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell examine what diplomatic and religious relationships the Vatican has to keep in mind as it weighs its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church asked Pope Francis to scrap plans to have a Ukrainian woman and a Russian woman carry the cross together during the pope’s Way of the Cross service.

Faced with anxieties we have not experienced since the Cold War, perhaps it is time to return to Thomas Merton’s writings on nuclear weapons and the Christian responsibility to advocate for peace in a nuclear age.

Pope Francis will visit Lebanon in June, the president’s office said Tuesday, in an apparent show of support for the country experiencing an unprecedented economic meltdown.

By tempering his rhetoric on Ukraine, the pope is protecting his role as a peacemaker. He is also downplaying any conflict between Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.