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 avoid the threat of nuclear war over Ukraine. .
At the Coliseum in Rome, Francis presided over the closing ceremony of a three-day conference organized by the Community of Sant’ Egidio of Italy, a world group for peace and charity.
In his address to thousands of people, delivered after several religious groups prayed separately, Francis criticized “the grim scenario of today, where, sad to say, the plans of powerful world leaders do not take into account the righteous aspirations of peoples.”
Referring to the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Francis said: “Today, in fact, something we feared and hoped never to hear of again is threatened: the use of atomic weapons, which even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki wrongly continued to be produced and tested”.
Francis recalled how on October 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Pope John 23 broadcast a radio message urging the leaders of the time to lift the world from the brink.
“Today, peace has been seriously violated, attacked and trampled on, and this in Europe, on the same continent that in the last century suffered the horrors of two world wars,” Francis said.
The conference, mostly held at a center outside Rome, was opened on Sunday (23) by French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
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