ROME — Pope Francis on Thursday once again condemned the war in Ukraine, denouncing the aggression as “Luciferian” and “diabolical.”
In an address to members of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches (ROACO), the pontiff urged attention to the “beloved and tormented Ukraine,” insisting that the conflict has given rebirth to “the drama of Cain and Abel.”
The people of Ukraine have been subjected to “a violence that destroys life,” the pope said, a “Luciferian, diabolical violence” that believers are called to combat with the power of prayer and the concrete help of charity.
A volunteer of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces looks at a dead body of a soldier lying in a forest in the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Monday, March 7, 2022 (Andrew Marienko/AP).
Christians must employ all the means at their disposal so that “weapons give way to negotiations,” Francis continued, while also thanking those who have contributed to making the solicitude of the Church and of the pope palpable to the people of Ukraine the solicitude of the Church and of the pope.
“In faith we know that the heights of human pride and idolatry will be brought down and the valleys of desolation and tears filled,” he stated, but we would also like to see Isaiah’s prophecy of peace fulfilled soon so that one people no longer raises its hand against another and that swords be converted into plowshares.
This is not yet the case, the pope lamented. Instead, “everything seems to be going in the opposite direction: food decreases and the roar of weapons increases,” he added, echoing Cain’s aggression against his brother.
“Let us therefore not cease to pray, to fast, to help, to work so that the paths of peace may find space in the jungle of conflicts,” he concluded.
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