The blood of Bucha's innocent cries out to Heaven to silence weapons, says Pope

During the general audience, Francis held up a Ukrainisn flag he received from the city that is the scene of "increasingly horrific cruelty". "In the dominant logic of the most powerful states asserting their interests, we witness the impotence of the UN." From his trip to Malta "which has mission in its DNA" an invitation to the new evangelization.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Increasingly horrific cruelties" cry out to Heaven and implore that "weapons be silenced" in Ukraine., said Pope Francis Wednesday specifically referring to the images of the massacres in Bucha. 

Speaking at the end of the general audience at the Vatican, his words were accompanied with a very strong gesture, when he held up to the faithful present in the Paul VI Hall a flag of Ukraine received from the martyred town near Kiev, whose name evokes images of the dead in mass graves and on streets have gone around the world in recent hours.

"The recent news about the war in Ukraine - said Pope Francis - instead of bringing relief and hope, attest to new atrocities such as the Bucha massacre: increasingly horrific cruelties carried out even against civilians, women and unarmed children. They are victims whose innocent blood cries out to Heaven and begs for an end to this war, to silence the weapons, to stop sowing death and destruction. Yesterday from Bucha they brought me this flag. It comes from the war, from this martyred city." Showing the flag, Pope Francis called up next to him some children who had come as refugees from Ukraine: "These are the fruits of war - he added - let us not forget them and let us not forget the Ukrainian people."

During the audience, Pope Francis had retraced the apostolic journey that on April 2 and 3 took him to Malta, "a kind of wind rose - he noted - where peoples and cultures intersect, a privileged point to observe the Mediterranean area at 360 degrees." "Today - the pontiff further observed - we often speak of geopolitics, but unfortunately the dominant logic is that of the strategies of the most powerful states to affirm their interests by extending the area of economic, ideological and military influence. After World War II an attempt was made to lay the foundations of a new history of peace, but unfortunately the old story of competing great powers has continued. And, in the current war in Ukraine, we are witnessing the impotence of the United Nations Organization".

Malta - on the contrary - represents the "right and strength of small nations, but rich in history and civilization, which should pursue another logic: that of respect and freedom, of the conviviality of differences, as opposed to the colonization of the most powerful".  

On this a key issue with which Malta is called to confront is that of migrants: Pope Francis cited his meeting with them in the John XXIII Reception Center. "We must not tire of listening to their testimonies, because only in this way can we emerge from the distorted vision that often circulates in the mass media and we can recognize the faces, the stories, the wounds, the dreams and the hopes." "Every migrant - he added - is a person with his dignity, his roots, his culture. Each of them is the bearer of a wealth infinitely greater than the problems it brings. And let us not forget that Europe was made by migrations."

Finally, Pope Francis recalled Malta's crucial role in evangelization, from the beginnings of Christianity to its many missionaries given to the world: It is "as if the passage of St. Paul had left the mission in the DNA of the Maltese," Francis commented. But even on the island - he added - today "the wind of secularism and globalized pseudo-culture based on consumerism, neo-capitalism and relativism is blowing. Even there, therefore, it is time for a new evangelization. Like my predecessors, my visit to St. Paul's Grotto was like drawing from the spring, so that the Gospel can flow in Malta with the freshness of its origins and revive its great heritage of popular religiosity."