Pope Francis on Ukraine: ‘Stop this massacre’

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Appealing again for an end to the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said those who invoke God to promote or justify violence “profane his name”.

“In the name of God, I ask: Stop this massacre,” the Pope said on March 13 at the end of his Sunday Angelus address.

With thousands of people gathered under the bright sunshine of a Roman spring to pray the midday Marian prayer, Pope Francis turned their attention to Mariupol, Ukraine, a city named in honour of Mary; it has been besieged by Russian troops for two weeks.

The city, he said, “has become a martyred city of the heart-wrenching war that is destroying Ukraine”.

“Before the barbarity of the killing of children, of innocents and unarmed civilians, there are no strategic reasons that hold up,” the Pope said. The only thing to do is “to stop the unacceptable armed aggression before it reduces the cities to cemeteries”.

“With pain in my heart, I unite my voice to that of ordinary people who implore an end to the war,” he said. “In the name of God, listen to the cry of those who are suffering and stop the bombings and attacks.”

Negotiations to end the war must begin seriously, he said, and the humanitarian corridors agreed upon to evacuate civilians and to bring basic necessities to people in besieged towns must be respected and secure.

With the UN Refugee Agency reporting March 13 that almost 2.7 million refugees had fled Ukraine since February 24, Pope Francis thanked all the individuals and agencies in the neighbouring countries who have welcomed them, and he encouraged continued generosity.

He also asked Catholic parishes and religious orders around the world “to increase moments of prayers for peace”.

“God is the God only of peace, he is not the God of war,” he said. “Those who support violence profane his name.”

Pope Francis led the people in the square, including several carrying Ukrainian flags, in a moment of silent prayer that God would “convert hearts to a firm desire for peace”.

After the Angelus, the Vatican used the Pope’s English-language Twitter account to send, in 10 tweets, his entire appeal in Russian and Ukrainian.

The previous day, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said that Russia’s war on Ukraine “seems to have changed” the world.

“In the face of what is happening in Ukraine, many people are talking about rearmament: New and huge sums of money are being allocated to armaments, the logic of war seems to prevail, the distance between nations is increasing,” Cardinal Parolin told Vatican News on March 12.

The cardinal quoted Pope Francis’ statement at Hiroshima, Japan, in 2019: “The use of atomic energy for the purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of atomic weapons is immoral.”

“War is madness, it must be stopped,” the cardinal said. “We ask, appealing to the consciences of all, that the fighting cease immediately.”

While Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed the invasion of Ukraine is a “military operation”, not a war, to protect his country, Pope Francis insisted on March 6, “It is not merely a military operation, but a war, which sows death, destruction and misery.”

“Words are important,” Cardinal Parolin said, “and to define what is happening in Ukraine as a ‘military operation’ is to fail to recognise the reality of the facts. We are facing a war.”

The results of war are clear, he said: the deaths of civilians, “women, elderly people and defenceless children who have paid with their lives for the folly of war”; the destruction of cities, leaving people with no electricity, food or medicine; and the fleeing of some 2.7 million refugees – mostly women and children – to neighbouring countries.

“Over the last few days, I have come across a group of them, who have arrived in Italy from various parts of Ukraine: blank stares, faces without smiles, endless sadness,” Cardinal Parolin said.

“We would have to possess a heart of stone to remain impassive and allow this havoc to continue, as rivers of blood and tears continue to flow,” he said. “War is a barbarity!”

The pleas of Pope Francis and other religious, civic and government leaders and what the cardinal called the Pope’s “unprecedented” decision to go in person to the Russian Embassy to the Holy See to beg for peace seem to have had little impact, Cardinal Parolin said.

“War is like a cancer that grows, expands and feeds on itself,” he said. “It is an adventure with no return, to use the prophetic words of St John Paul II.”

Catholic social teaching recognises “the legitimacy of armed resistance in the face of aggression”, he said. But the world still must ask, “Are we doing everything possible to reach a truce? Is armed resistance the only way forward?”

“Unfortunately, we must recognise that we have fallen into a vortex that can have incalculable and ill-fated consequences for everyone,” the cardinal said. “When a conflict is underway, when the number of defenceless victims grows, it is always difficult to turn back.”

But stopping the war is not impossible, he said. “We must not give in to the logic of violence and hatred. Nor must we give in to the logic of war and be resigned to it, extinguishing any glimmer of hope.”

“We must all together cry out to God and to mankind to silence the weapons and restore peace, as the Pope is doing,” Cardinal Parolin said.

(Photo: Pope Francis greets the crowd as he leads the Angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on March 13 (CNS Photo))