As with his representative in Ukraine, Francis sent a letter to the apostolic nuncio in the Russian Federation on the occasion of the thousand days of conflict. “The suffering of the innocent is a powerful denunciation against all forms of violence,” said the Sovereign Pontiff, who encourages “renewing diplomatic efforts to stop the progression of the conflict.”
Salvatore Cernuzio – Vatican City
Taking up his pen again, the Pope, as he had done on November 19 with the nuncio in Ukraine, sent a letter to his representative in the Russian Federation, Mgr. Giovanni d'Aniello, to firstly express his pain for an exhausting and prolonged war which represents a “grave injury inflicted on the human family”, then to encourage “renew diplomatic efforts” which will help end the conflict and lead to peace.
“I am convinced that humanitarian efforts in favor of the most vulnerable can pave the way for new diplomatic efforts necessary to stop the progression of the conflict and achieve the long-awaited peace.”
Close to all those who suffer
A peacelong awaited”, certainly, but which, more than a thousand days after the start of Russian aggression, still seems a distant objective. Meanwhile, in almost three years of bombings, killings, injuries, imprisonments, there are hundreds of thousands of deaths on the ground and in homes, a river of tears shed by broken families. François – who, since the start of the conflict, has promoted this principle of “equivocal” with regard to those who suffer, specific to the Pope, pastor of the universal Church, but also of pontifical diplomacy- becomes the “interpreter”as he writes, of this pain.
Cry of pain
The pain “tens of thousands of mothers, fathers and sons who mourn their loved ones fallen in war or who grieve for the missing, the prisoners and the wounded, whether military or civilian. “Their cry rises to God, invoking peace instead of war, dialogue instead of the din of arms, solidarity instead of particular interests, because we can never kill in the name of God.”
Rebuilding peace
“The painful and prolonged duration of this war calls upon us urgently, calling upon us to the duty to reflect together on how to alleviate the suffering of those affected and rebuild peace“, writes the Pope in the letter signed on December 12 in view of Christmas, but distributed today, Saturday 14. “We are all, in fact, linked by mutual responsibility, in the spirit of true human fraternity. adds the Sovereign Pontiff, reiterating his personal concern in the face of “news on the suffering caused by the conflict in this region”.
The Brothers Karamazov and the suffering of the innocent
News of raids and missiles, of civilians killed by bombs, of approaching arms deliveries and of a ceasefire that seems to be fading away. But what afflicts Pope Francis is above all the suffering of the innocent. To denounce it, he draws inspiration from Russian culture in his missive, citing one of the authors dearest to him, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and his Brothers Karamazov. It recalls in particular the dialogue, contained in the fourth chapter of book V, in which Ivan, one of the brothers, explains to Alyosha that he rejects God's world because of human suffering, in particular that of children. A scene cited several times by the Pope during these years of his pontificate.
