Pope Francis at the service of peace

By Paolo Ondarza

Those who wage war forget humanity. During these six months of conflict in Ukraine, Pope Francis' appeals for peace and to avert the risk of global catastrophe have been unceasing.

A defeat for everyone

Pope Francis has not missed an opportunity to remind the world, with a gaze that extends beyond the context of the geographic borders where fighting is taking place, that “every war, represents a defeat for every one” (Angelus March 27, 2022 ). He has also urged a change in perspective in order to “defeat war” (General Audience March 23, 2022).

“Our imagination” the Pope said, “appears increasingly concentrated on the representation of a final catastrophe that will extinguish us. What happens with an eventual nuclear war” (General Audience March 16, 2022). “Faced with the danger of self-destruction, may humanity understand that the moment has come to abolish war, to erase it from human history, before it erases humans from history”. “What victory is there,” he asked, “in planting a flag on a pile of rubble?” (Angelus, April 10, 2022). “May the Spirit of the Lord free us all from this self-destructive need.”

A sacrilegious act

War is a senseless "place of death where fathers and mothers bury their children, where men kill their brothers without even having seen them, where the powerful decide and the poor die." "It is a madness that has no justification," he noted, thinking of the many children displaced since the beginning of the conflict. It "not only devastates the present, but also the future of a society. It means destroying the future, causing dramatic trauma in the smallest and most innocent among us." A barbaric, bestial, abhorrent and sacrilegious act, that is contrary to the "sacredness of human life, especially against defenceless human life, which should be respected and protected, not eliminated, and which comes before any strategy!" (Angelus March 20, 2022).

A dream and a nightmare

"For God is only God of peace, not of war" and "stands with the peacemakers" (Angelus February 27, 2022). Pope Francis continues to reiterate, that "those who support violence profane His name" (Angelus March 13, 2022), denying God's "dream of humanity fulfilled at Pentecost, the day when peoples of different languages meet and understand each other. On the contrary, war is "a nightmare" in which " peoples lock horns, peoples kill each other, people are driven from their homes instead of being brought closer.” (Regina Coeli - June 5, 2022).

Never get used to war

With his thoughts turned beyond Europe to the forgotten conflicts in Syria, Yemen or Myanmar, to name just a few pieces of the "third world war fought piecemeal,” the Pope repeatedly appealed to never consider any armed conflict as inevitable. Indeed, it is necessary to counter with all force the risk of growing accustomed to, or even forgetting the "tragic reality" of what is happening in Ukraine, or elsewhere, as if the war were something far away and "cool our heart." Today's  outrage," he added, must be converted "into tomorrow's commitment. For if we come out of this affair as we did before, we will all be guilty in some way."

Children of one Father

"The Father of all, not only of some," indeed "wants us to be brothers and sisters, and not enemies." War, on the other hand, recalls "the spirit of Cain" who killed his brother Abel. "Humanity is stubborn," repeating errors and horrors of the past, the Pope noted, "we are in love with wars, with the spirit of Cain, of killing, instead of the spirit of peace." (Press Conference on Return flight to Rome from Malta - 3 April 3, 2022). "Those who pursue their own interests to the detriment of others, scorn their human vocation, because we were all created as brothers and sisters, ”Pope Francis said a few weeks before the conflict began, inviting all to a day of prayer for peace on January 26, 2022, (Angelus, 23 January, 2022).

Unceasing prayer

Even before the intensification of the escalation of violence, when the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded Ukrainian territory, Pope Francis relentlessly called for a U-turn, pointing to the teaching of Jesus as the answer to the “diabolical senselessness” of violence (General Audience February 23, 2022).

On Ash Wednesday, March 2, he opened Lent under the sign of fasting and prayer for peace in Ukraine, inviting everyone not to turn away from the God of reconciliation through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace: "Let us not stop praying, indeed let us pray more intensely! " so that "the Lord may open ways of dialogue that men do not want or cannot find," he admonished in the conviction that "peace in the world always begins with our personal conversion, following Christ." (General Audience March 2, 2022).

Consecrated to the Queen of Peace

Pope Francis, on the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, 25 March, consecrated all humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,  especially Russia and Ukraine, imploring lasting concord among nations under the mantle of the common Mother: "Deliver us from war, preserve the world from the nuclear threat."Let us please continue to pray the Rosary for peace each day. And let us pray for the leaders of nations, so that they might not lose the “pulse of the people” who want peace and who know well that weapons never achieve it.” (Regina Coeli - May 8, 2022).

The risk of ruin

With pain in his heart in the face of increasingly alarming scenarios, the Pope urged political leaders to “examine their consciences seriously before God”. "I pray that all parties involved refrain from any action that causes even more suffering to populations, destabilizing coexistence between nations and bringing international law into disrepute." Noting the impotence of the United Nations Organization (General Audience April 6, 2022) and in the conviction that "every single day of war worsens the situation for all," he then called for "political initiatives and actions in the service of human fraternity to be put before partisan interests with a heartfelt appeal: “do not lead humanity in ruin, please!"

A "serious dialogue" is indeed the only solution said the Pope, and weapons are not the way. (Angelus December 12, 2021): "If one looked at what is happening objectively, considering the harm that war brings every day to those people, but also to the entire world, the only reasonable thing to do would be to stop and negotiate." (Angelus July 31, 2022).

The diabolical logic of weapons

The Holy Father, thus urges that, "true negotiations take place, real talks for a ceasefire and for a sustainable solution. Let the desperate cry of the suffering people be heard, have respect for human life and stop the macabre destruction of cities and villages." For war is never on the side of man. It does “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.”

Negotiation and the common good

Every crisis can turn into an opportunity before it is too late and the Ukrainian one, according to the Pontiff “can still become a challenge for wise statesmen, capable of building, with dialogue, a better world for the new generations. With God’s help, this is always possible! But it is necessary to pass from the strategies of political, economic and military power to a plan for global peace: no to a world divided among conflicting powers; yes to a world united among peoples and civilizations that respect each other.” (Angelus July 3, 2022).

Beside the victims

There were constant calls to encourage safe humanitarian corridors and to put in place aid efforts for the population ravaged by the bombs, those who, just three thousand kilometers from Rome, are in “martyrdom" and fleeing violence, especially children and the elderly, helpless victims of pride and selfishness.

With the same thoughtfulness, Pope Francis never failed to thank the many men and women of good will who from the first moment opened their doors to the refugees in whom Christ is present: "Let us not tire of welcoming with generosity, as is being done, not only now, in the emergency, but also in the weeks and months to come." "Let us think of these women and children who in time, without work, separated from their husbands, will be sought out by the ‘vultures’ of society. Please, let us protect them.”

At the service of peace

Since last February, the Pope has confided his constant sentiments of hope, anguish and concern. It was never just the sympathetic and empathetic gaze of an observer. In fact, from the very first moment, he became close with those who daily risk falling victim to the cruelty of war and tried every avenue to reach the hearts of those who can still turn the tide.

He immediately visited the Russian Ambassador in Rome; had telephone conversations with Ukrainian President Zelensky; thanked several times the journalists who, sent to the field to guarantee information, put their lives at risk; and encouraged and welcomed as a sign of hope, the recent departure from Ukrainian ports of the first ships loaded with grain.

It is a solicitude that has been made clear in the Holy See's active commitment to work unreservedly to place itself at the service of peace, with the dispatch to Ukraine last March of Cardinals Krajewski and Czerny, respectively the Papal Almoner and Prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, and in May, of Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations.

Pope Francis has never hidden it: in his innermost being he nurtures a keen desire to "open a door," to travel to the areas affected by the conflict first to Moscow and then to Kyiv: "it is on the table," "I would like to go" "to serve the cause of peace."