Rescuers work at the site of buildings damaged by shelling in Mykolaiv

POPE

Pope: “War is a defeat for humanity”

Pope Francis turns his attention, yet again, to the war in Ukraine inviting the faithful to join him, and bishops throughout the world, in prayer on 25 March to ask the Lord, through the intercession of Our Lady, for the gift of peace.

By Linda Bordoni

“I would like to take a minute to remember the victims of the war. The news of displaced persons, of people fleeing, of people killed, people wounded, of so many soldiers fallen on both sides, is news of death,” said Pope Francis at the conclusion of the General Audience.

Addressing the faithful after his weekly catechesis, the Pope said: “We ask the Lord of life to deliver us from this death of war.”

“With war everything is lost, everything. There is no victory in a war: everything is defeated.”

And he invoked the Lord “to send His Spirit to make us understand that war is a defeat for humanity, which we need to defeat, all of us.”

May the Spirit make us understand, the Pope continued, “that waging war is a need that destroys us,” and he prayed that we be delivered “from this need for self-destruction.”

“We pray, too, for leaders to understand that buying weapons and making weapons is not the solution to the problem.”

The solution, Pope Francis concluded, is to work together for peace and, as the Bible says, to turn weapons into instruments for peace,” and he asked those present to join him in prayer to Our Lady.

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