ROME — Pope Francis has compared the war in Ukraine to the coronavirus pandemic, lamenting there is no vaccine for the “virus of war.”
At the very moment “when we dared to hope that the darkest hours of the Covid-19 pandemic were over, a terrible new disaster befell humanity,” the pontiff writes in his message for the World Day of Peace, released Friday. “We witnessed the onslaught of another scourge: another war, to some extent like that of Covid-19, but driven by culpable human decisions.”
“The war in Ukraine is reaping innocent victims and spreading insecurity, not only among those directly affected, but in a widespread and indiscriminate way for everyone, also for those who, even thousands of kilometres away, suffer its collateral effects – we need but think of grain shortages and fuel prices,” he writes.
Underscoring that this is not the post-pandemic world we would have hoped for, the pope asserts that Russia’s war on Ukraine, together with other armed conflicts around the globe, “represents a setback for the whole of humanity and not merely for the parties directly involved.”
“While a vaccine has been found for Covid-19, suitable solutions have not yet been found for the war,” he writes. “Certainly, the virus of war is more difficult to overcome than the viruses that compromise our bodies, because it comes, not from outside of us, but from within the human heart corrupted by sin.”
As a lesson from this historic moment, the pope proposes letting “our hearts be changed by our experience of the crisis” and letting God “transform our customary criteria for viewing the world around us.”
“We can no longer think exclusively of carving out space for our personal or national interests; instead, we must think in terms of the common good, recognizing that we belong to a greater community, and opening our minds and hearts to universal human fraternity,” he states, returning to a favorite theme of his.
In his message, the pope goes on to enumerate what he considers to be the most important crises still facing the human race, including the urgent need to implement “clear and effective measures to combat climate change.”
File/Vatican photographer snaps a photo while Pope Francis follows speeches at the ‘7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2022. Against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Francis opened an interfaith conference in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan by challenging delegations to unite in condemning war. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
“We need to battle the virus of inequality and to ensure food and dignified labour for all, supporting those who lack even a minimum wage,” he writes, adding that we also need “to develop suitable policies for welcoming and integrating migrants and those whom our societies discard.”
Only by responding generously to these situations “will we be able to build a new world,” he asserts.