Pope Francis celebrated the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with people from Ukraine on Friday night. Together they watched the movie “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”. The documentary by Russian-born Israeli director Yevgeny Afineyevsky shows the lives of people in Ukraine in the first months of the war.
As the Vatican’s press office reported on Saturday, according to Kathpress, after the film was shown in the synod hall, the pope said, “Let’s pray for Ukraine and open our hearts to sorrow.” He continued: “When God created man, He told him to take the earth, make it grow, make it beautiful. The spirit of war is the opposite: destroy, destroy, don’t grow, destroy everyone, men, women, children, old people, everyone.”
The pope watched the film in the midst of refugees and members of the Ukrainian community in Rome. Photos circulated on the Vatican News portal show him talking to Ukrainians and kissing a Ukrainian flag.
Pope has been trying to mediate for months
According to Vatican News, he also spoke to a Ukrainian woman whose husband is a Russian prisoner of war and her son. The Vatican has repeatedly tried in recent months to mediate the exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine.
Also in the audience were numerous volunteer helpers and the papal chaplain, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. The cardinal, who comes from Poland, traveled to Ukraine on behalf of the pope during the war, accompanying an aid convoy.
Source: Krone
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