Pope Francis confessed his love for the Russian and Ukrainian peoples and affirmed that the Holy See is “doing what it must do” to resolve the Ukrainian crisis peacefully.
“I have high regard for the Russian people, for Russian humanism. Suffice it to think of Dostoyevsky, who still inspires our Christianity. I have a love for the Russian people and also for the Ukrainian people,” the pontiff said Sunday during a press conference aboard a plane en route to Rome at the conclusion of his apostolic trip to Bahrain.
“I am between two peoples that I love,” Askanews news agency quoted the pope as saying.
The pontiff again recalled how he visited the Russian embassy in the Vatican the day after hostilities began in Ukraine, how he expressed his desire to go to Russia, and how he spoke twice by phone with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
“Work is being done on rapprochement, on finding solutions. The Holy See is doing what it has to do. And for the release of prisoners. But that’s what we always do,” he noted.
Pope Francis noted with pain the brutality of the fighting. He stressed, however, that “cruelty is not peculiar to the Russian people.”
“The Russian people are great. And this applies to mercenaries and soldiers who go to war as to lust,” he said.
The pontiff reiterated that humanity is now dealing with World War III. In this regard, he recalled acute conflicts in Yemen, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Syria and Lebanon.
“We are at war everywhere. And now it touches us close, in Europe,” the pope stressed.
“The greatest calamity today is the production of weapons. If weapons were not produced within a year, world hunger would end,” he noted.
During his pastoral trip to Bahrain, Pope Francis repeatedly urged prayer for peace in Ukraine. The pontiff’s thirty-ninth foreign trip lasted from Nov. 3 to Nov. 6. He became the first pope to visit the Kingdom of Bahrain, whose state religion is Islam.
288 total views, 2 views today
