Pope Francis shared that it is “unbearable” what is happening in Ukraine and pointed out that the real response to this war “is not more weapons or more sanctions.”
The Pontiff said these words on the occasion of the 31st National Elective Congress of Italian Women’s Center on Thursday. The Holy Father was receiving the participants of the meeting held in Rome under the title “Creative identity of men and women in a shared mission”. The Pope reminded the need to change the way of governing the world.
The Pope said that the war in Ukraine “is the result of the old logic of power that continues to dominate so-called geopolitics.”
“The history of the last seventy years proves it: regional wars have never been lacking; that’s why I said that we were in the third world war in pieces, a little everywhere; until we come to this one, which has a larger dimension and threatens the entire world, ”he explained during the audience at the Vatican Apostolic Palace.
“But the underlying problem is the same: the world continues to be governed like a ‘chessboard’, where the powerful study the moves to extend their dominance to the detriment of others,” lamented the Holy Father.
Next, Pope Francis said that the real answer to this war “is not more weapons or more sanctions” and claimed to have been ashamed when he found out that some countries committed to buying weapons.
“It’s crazy! The real answer is not more weapons, more sanctions, or more politico-military alliances, but a different approach, a different way of governing the now globalized world and not ‘showing teeth’, as now”, he assured.
The Holy Father indicated that “good politics cannot come from the culture of power understood as domination and oppression, but only from the culture of care, care for the person and their dignity, and care for our common home. This is demonstrated, unfortunately in a negative way, by the shameful war that we are witnessing”, he pointed out.
The Holy Father explained to the members of the Italian Women’s Center that “women can change the system if they manage, so to speak, to transform power from the logic of domination to the logic of service, to the logic of care.”
“It is the school of Jesus, who taught us how the Kingdom of God always develops from a small seed,” said the Holy Father, while assuring that this change “concerns everyone and depends on each one” and that can be lived from the Gospel.
In this sense, he congratulated them for their work, focusing his gaze “, especially on boys and girls, on boys and girls who, in their growth, need points of reference, adult figures with which to compare themselves. Men and women”.
“I want to thank you because you are here because in Italy this women’s association exists and is going forward, which is animated by the Gospel and wants to dialogue with everyone for the common good of society. And this should not be taken for granted,” the Pope assured.