In his yearly Christmas Day message, Pope Francis demanded that the “senseless violence in Ukraine” come to a “immediate halt.”
In St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the Pope spoke in front of a sizable crowd and denounced the use of “food as a weapon” in warfare.
About 30% of the world’s wheat was delivered by Ukraine, and since the Russian invasion in February, prices have increased.
Pope Francis delivered his tenth Christmas Day address since taking office.
While the most of his ten-minute address was devoted to the crisis in Ukraine, he also discussed wars and humanitarian problems in Syria, Myanmar, Iran, Haiti, and the Sahel region of Africa. He claimed that the world was currently facing a “famine of peace.”
Pope Francis has expressed concern about how the world is getting so numb to suffering and catastrophes that they are now barely noticed.
The pontiff mentioned the ongoing unrest in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq as well as other regions of Africa, Europe, and Asia in his yearly Christmas Day speech.
He added that the pandemic’s impacts put efforts to end international wars in jeopardy.
After delivering his remarks indoors last year, he spoke outside once more this year.
Thousands of Catholics watched the Pope make his Urbi et Orbi address from the balcony of the Basilica while donning face masks as part of Covid precautions in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.
There is “a rising propensity to withdraw… to cease making an effort to contact others and do things together,” the pope cautioned concerning the pandemic’s societal repercussions.
“On the international level too there is the risk of avoiding discussion, the chance that this complex issue will lead to taking short cuts rather than setting out on the longer journey,” he said in reference to the danger of avoiding taking the longer way to address disputes.
He stated, “We continue to see an increase in confrontations, crises, and disagreements. These appear to go on forever, and by this point, we hardly even notice them.
Massive disasters are being ignored because we are so accustomed to them.
“An huge tragedy unseen by everyone has silently gone on for years,” he said, mentioning Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. He urged people to keep in mind the “exceptional” economic and social catastrophe afflicting Lebanon as well as the ongoing hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Pope then turned his attention to Asia, pleading with God to console the Afghan people, “who for more than 40 years have been cruelly tested by conflicts, and to sustain the people of Myanmar, whose bigotry and violence routinely target the Christian community and its places of worship.”
In addition, he prayed for peace in the Sahel, which has been a front line in the fight against Islamist militancy for almost ten years, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and other difficulty regions across the world.
Earlier, 85-year-old Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve with Mass at the Basilica, where he exhorted people to “treasure the simple things in life” and to have more compassion for the underprivileged.
During this night of love, he prayed that we would dread just one thing: violating God’s love and hurting him by disdaining the poor with our indifference.