We’ve seen too much blood, too much violence […] That we stop showing muscles while people suffer
launched the sovereign pontiff during his traditional blessing Urbi and orbi
in front of some 50,000 worshipers gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
” Please don’t get used to war, let’s all pledge to ask for peace […] May those who have the responsibility of the Nations hear the cry of peace of the people. »
The spiritual leader of the 1.3 billion Catholics has long insisted on the need for peace to martyred Ukraine, so hard hit by the violence and the destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged
with the Russian invasion which began on February 24.
The sovereign pontiff said he was thinking of many Ukrainian victims
citing millions of refugees and internally displaced, families divided, elderly left alone, lives shattered and cities razed to the ground.
I have in my eyes the look of children who have become orphans
he added.
Worshipers hold a flag of Ukraine during the Pope’s Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
Photo: Getty Images / TIZIANA FABI
However, he welcomed the encouraging signs
as the open doors of many families and communities hosting migrants and refugees across Europe
seeing it a blessing for our societies, sometimes degraded by so much selfishness and individualism
.
After devoting a large part of his message to this conflict, the pope gave his traditional overview of the conflicts in the world, evoking in turn Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Burma or even the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where he is due to go in early July.
Before this blessing, the 85-year-old pope, who appeared diminished by his knee pain in recent days, enjoyed a long walkabout with pilgrims from all over the world aboard his Popemobile
in the alleys of Saint-Pierre square.
