He spoke just hours after air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine and a day after kyiv said a Russian attack on the newly liberated city of Kherson killed at least five people and wounded 35 others on Saturday, in what President Volodimir Zelensky condemned as gratuitous killing for pleasure.
“May the Lord dispose us to make concrete gestures of solidarity to help those who are suffering, and enlighten the minds of those who have the power to silence the guns and put an immediate end to this senseless war,” Francis said.
The conflict in Ukraine, he argued, should not diminish concern for people whose lives have been devastated by other conflicts or humanitarian crises, naming Syria, Myanmar, Iran, Haiti and the Sahel region of Africa among others. “Our time is experiencing a serious lack of peace,” she said.
The Holy Father called for the resumption of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land, the birthplace of Jesus. It is worth mentioning that this year there have been the worst levels of violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in more than a decade, with at least 150 Palestinians and more than 20 Israelis killed.
While many sit around “a well-laid table”, huge amounts of food are wasted daily and resources spent on weapons, he asserted and condemned the use of food as a weapon of war, stating that the war in Ukraine had put millions of people at risk of famine, and mentioned Afghanistan and the countries of the Horn of Africa.
(With information from Reuters and AFP)