“Today we are experiencing a world war, let us please stop,” the Pope said during the weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
Addressing the current unstable situation on the global stage, the Holy Father encouraged everybody to “be a builder of peace” and to pray that thoughts of peace and reconciliation will spread all over the world amid the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine.
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Francis also entrusted to the Virgin Mary the victims of any war, especially the “dear people of Ukraine.”
On August 31, the Pope recalled the 83rd anniversary of the outbreak of the World War II, noting that ongoing conflicts throughout the globe can be called a third World War. Pope Francis voiced the same idea on June 14, in an interview with the editors of European Jesuit Journals, wondering what was happening to humanity that it had three world wars in a century.
On February 24, Russia began a military operation in Ukraine responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow said that the aim of its operation is the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine. The West responded by imposing comprehensive sanctions against Moscow while also ramping up its military support for Kiev, ramping up an already deadly conflict.
