After the Angelus recited this Sunday, December 22 from the chapel of the Maison Sainte-Marthe, the Sovereign Pontiff spoke out against the wars still tearing the world apart as Christmas and the New Year approach. Francis begs for “the weapons to be silent”, that instead “Christmas carols resound”.
Delphine Allaire – Vatican City
«Martyred Ukraine continues to be hit by attacks on cities, sometimes damaging schools, hospitals and churches. Let the guns be silent and the Christmas carols ring out!”demanded this Sunday the Argentine Sovereign Pontiff. As a sign of closeness, Francis dispatched his apostolic chaplain to the country for Christmas. Equipped with humanitarian cargo, mainly medical, Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski thus grants his thirteenth visit in the name of the Pope to Ukraine.
kyiv, the capital, was hit on Friday December 20 by Russian ballistic missile fire, damaging several buildings, including the Saint-Nicolas Latin Church, and various embassies. “One person was killed, 12 others were injured,” according to the latest assessment of the city's military administration. The intensity of the fighting shows no signs of respite, with Russia attributing an attack on buildings in Kazan, in the heart of Tatarstan, to Ukraine this Sunday.
Children machine-gunned, “cruelty”
Amid the bombings, the Pope continues to implore peace and urged this Sunday that “the fires cease on all war fronts», in Ukraine, the Holy Land, the Middle East and throughout the world. It is in fact “with pain» which the Successor of Peter mentioned again in the process “cruelty» in Gaza. For the second time in two days, Francis thus characterized the current events in the Palestinian enclave.
“I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombing of schools and hospitals… So much cruelty!” he noted on this fourth Sunday of Advent. In sending his Christmas greetings to the members of the Roman Curia the day before, Saturday December 21, the Pope already used the term “cruelty” to describe Friday's bombings in Jaballa, north of Gaza City. These left ten people dead, including seven children from the same family. “It touches my heart”confided the Pope.
