via CNS:

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 at Rome’s Colosseum April 15.

Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, said April 12, “I consider such an idea untimely, ambiguous and such that it does not take into account the context of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.”

For Eastern Catholics in Ukraine, he said, “the texts and gestures of the 13th station of this Way of the Cross are incoherent and even offensive, especially in the context of the expected second, even bloodier attack of Russian troops on our cities and villages.”…

The statement from Shevchuk’s office said he, too, “conveyed to the Vatican the numerous negative reactions of many bishops, priests, monks and nuns, and laity who are convinced that gestures of reconciliation between our peoples will be possible only when the war is over and those guilty of crimes against humanity are justly condemned.”

“I hope that my request, the request of the faithful of our church, the request of the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine will be heard,” the archbishop said.