After the Angelus:
Dear brothers and sisters, in recent days we have been shaken by something
tragic: war. Several times we have prayed that this road would not be taken. And
let us not stop praying; indeed, let us implore God more intensely. For this reason, I
renew to all the invitation to make 2 March, Ash Wednesday, a day of prayer and
fasting for peace in Ukraine. A day to be close to the sufferings of the Ukrainian
people, to feel that we are all brothers and sisters, and to implore God for the end
of the war.
Those who wage war, those who provoke war, forget humanity. They do not start
from the people, they do not look at the real life of people, but place partisan
interests and power before all else. They trust in the diabolical and perverse logic of
weapons, which is the furthest from the will of God. And they distance themselves
from ordinary people, who want peace, and who are the real victims in every
conflict, who pay for the follies of war with their own skin. I think of the elderly, of
those who are seeking refuge in these hours, of mothers fleeing with their
children… They are brothers and sisters for whom it is urgent to open humanitarian
corridors, and who should be welcomed.
With a heart broken by what is happening in Ukraine — and let us not forget the
wars in other parts of the world, such as in Yemen, in Syria, in Ethiopia… — I
repeat: Silence all weapons! God is with the peacemakers, not with those who use
violence. Because those who love peace, as the Italian Constitution states, reject
“war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a
means for the settlement of international disputes”. […]
