ROME — Pope Francis met with a delegation of Orthodox Christians from the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Thursday in which he condemned Russia’s “war of aggression” against Ukraine.
Reconciliation among separated Christians “is a most timely consideration these days, as our world is disrupted by a cruel and senseless war of aggression in which many, many Christians are fighting one another,” the pontiff said, a phenomenon he described as a “scandal.”
In the first place, he said, “our concern must not be for talking and discussing, but for weeping, for helping others and for experiencing conversion ourselves.”
“We need to weep for the victims and the overwhelming bloodshed, the deaths of so many innocent people, the trauma inflicted on families, cities and an entire people,” he continued. “How much suffering has been endured by those who have lost their loved ones and been forced to abandon their homes and their own country!”
Christians need to experience conversion, he urged, and “to recognize that armed conquest, expansionism and imperialism have nothing to do with the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed,” in clear reference to Russia’s pretensions in Ukraine.
Jesus “told his disciples to reject violence, to put the sword back in its place, since those who live by the sword will die by the sword, Francis added.
“What kind of world do we want to emerge in the wake of this terrible outbreak of hostilities and conflict?” he asked. “And what contribution are we prepared to make even now towards a more fraternal humanity?”
Christians must avoid the temptation of turning the Father of all into “the god of our own ideas and our own nations,” he declared, insisting that “it is no longer the time to order our ecclesial agendas in accordance with the world’s standards of power and expediency, but in accordance with the Gospel’s bold prophetic message of peace.”
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