Pope, in Malta, decries ‘icy winds of war’ waged by nationalist ‘potentate’
April 04, 2022
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CWN Editor's Note: In an address to civil authorities and the diplomatic corps during his apostolic journey to Malta, Pope Francis—without mentioning Russia or its leader by name—lamented the invasion of Ukraine.
“We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past,” Pope Francis said. “However, the icy winds of war, which bring only death, destruction and hatred in their wake, have swept down powerfully upon the lives of many people and affected us all. Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that, will either shared, or not be at all.”
The Pontiff also called for respect for creation and a defense of “life from its beginning to its natural end,” include the lives of migrants and refugees who are fleeing across the Mediterranean Sea.
“Creation must be kept safe from rapacious greed, from avarice and from construction speculation, which compromise not only the landscape but the very future,” he said. “The Mediterranean cannot become the largest cemetery of Europe.”
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