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Pope appeals to politicians to avert threat of nuclear war over Ukraine

A conference attended by representatives of various religions calls for the banning of production of nuclear weapons

Published: Tue 25 Oct 2022, 10:25 PM

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  • Reuters

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Director of the European Bureau of Soto Zen Buddhism Shoten Minegishi and Sayyed Abu Al Qasim Al Dibaj of the World Pan-Islamic Jurisprudence Organization attend an inter-religious prayer for peace led by Pope Francis, at the Colosseum in Rome. — Reuters

Director of the European Bureau of Soto Zen Buddhism Shoten Minegishi and Sayyed Abu Al Qasim Al Dibaj of the World Pan-Islamic Jurisprudence Organization attend an inter-religious prayer for peace led by Pope Francis, at the Colosseum in Rome. — Reuters

Pope Francis, comparing the current world situation to the Cuban missile crisis 60 years ago, on Tuesday led leaders of world religions in a peace appeal to politicians to avert the threat of nuclear war over Ukraine.

Francis presided over the ceremonial closing at Rome’s Colosseum of a three-day conference organised by Italy’s Sant’ Egidio Community, a worldwide peace and charity group.

In his address to several thousand people, delivered after various religious groups prayed separately, Francis decried today’s “bleak scenario, where, sad to say, the plans of potent world leaders make no allowance for the just aspirations of peoples”.

Referring to the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Francis said: “Today, in fact, something we dreaded and hoped never to hear of again is threatened outright: The use of atomic weapons, which even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued wrongly to be produced and tested.”

Francis recalled how on October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, Pope John XXIII delivered a radio message appealing to leaders of the time to bring the world back from the brink.

“Today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that in the last century endured the horrors of two world wars,” Francis said.

Sitting near the pope on the stage in front of the ancient Colosseum was Edith Bruck, 91, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor and author who lives in Italy.

“Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet, the situation that we are presently experiencing is particularly dramatic,” he said.

The closing ceremony was attended by Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and representatives of other religions.

The meeting’s final appeal, read by a Syrian refugee, called for the banning of production of nuclear weapons.

The conference, most of which took place at a centre in Rome’s outskirts, was opened on Sunday by French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

At the opening on Sunday, Macron said the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was allowing itself to be manipulated by the country’s authorities to justify their war in Ukraine and urged it to resist such pressure.



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