Vatican diplomacy is working to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible, which is ready to mediate between the parties, according to the statement of Pope Francis, who called the conflict in Ukraine a third world war in an interview published in the Italian daily La Stampa on Friday. Pope Francis declared that an absurd Third World War is taking place, behind which lies the desire for power and the arms trade.
"Weakened empires seek conflict because they want to feel strong and because they want to sell weapons," said the head of the church.
He believed that if the production and trade of weapons were suspended for a year, hunger in the world could be eradicated. The Pope called hunger in the world a scandal, a shame, a crime. He emphasized that in the last hundred years, the current one is the third world war, "and we haven't learned anything from the previous ones either," he noted.
Pope Francis remembered his grandfather, who was a soldier on the front line of the Piave River in the First World War, and recalled the Normandy landings in the Second World War, in which, he said, tens of thousands of young people lost their lives. The head of the Catholic Church explained that the State Secretariat of the Holy See, entrusted with the diplomatic activities of the Vatican State, is constantly monitoring the developments of the war in Ukraine.
He emphasized that the Vatican is working on the ceasefire and is ready to mediate between the parties to end the conflict. He added that they also provide humanitarian aid to the "martyr" Ukraine, and the State Secretariat of the Holy See, led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, is trying to encourage rapprochement between the parties with a system of contacts.
Pope Francis said the Holy See "does what is necessary" to release the prisoners as well. "I have hope, let's not give up, peace is possible (..) we must want peace, not just a momentary ceasefire, which is necessary for rearmament," he declared. He proposed a recipe for disarming hearts, neutralizing violence: "we must all be pacifists," he said.
In response to La Stampa's questions about Italian domestic politics and the Pope's personal life, Pope Francis stated that Giorgia Meloni, who leads the current right-wing government in Rome, won the election legitimately.
He said he dislikes "isms" because they create social and political tension.
In connection with the fact that he is visiting his family from Asti in Piedmont on Sunday, for his cousin's ninetieth birthday, Pope Francis responded that we must never forget or deny our own cultural and family roots. Looking at his own age, his upcoming 86th birthday, quoting the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, he said that he spends his old age in peace and religiously.
Source: MTI/Mandiner
Opening image: MTI/EPA/Reuters pool/Guglielmo Mangiapane
