Pope Francis on Tuesday gathered representatives of all major world religions in a peace appeal to lawmakers to prevent the threat of nuclear war over Ukraine by drawing comparisons between the current global situation and the Cuban missile crisis of 60 years ago.
Francis lamented the "bleak scenario, where, sad to say, the plans of potent world leaders make no allowance for the just aspirations of peoples," in his talk to several thousand people, which he spoke about after several faith groups prayed individually.
"Today, in fact, something we dreaded and hoped never to hear of again is threatened outright: the use of atomic weapons, which even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued wrongly to be produced and tested," Pope Francis said, referring to the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Francis recounted how Pope John XXIII sent out a radio message on Oct. 25, 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, pleading with the world's leaders to save the world from a calamity. "Today peace has been gravely violated, assaulted, and trampled upon, and this in Europe, on the very continent that in the last century endured the horrors of two world wars," Francis said.
Edith Bruck, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor and author from Hungary who now resides in Italy, was seated next to the pope on the platform in front of the historic Colosseum. "Sadly, since then, wars have continued to cause bloodshed and to impoverish the earth. Yet, the situation that we are presently experiencing is particularly dramatic," he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian President Sergio Mattarella inaugurated the summit on Sunday. Most of it was held at a facility outside of Rome. A petition for the prohibition of nuclear weapons manufacture was read out during the meeting's closing remarks by a Syrian refugee. Representatives of different religions, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists, attended the closing ceremony.
At the event's opening on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the Russian Orthodox Church, whose head Patriarch Kirill is a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was allowing itself to be used by the government to legitimize their conflict in Ukraine and urged it to resist such pressure.
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on Dec.17, 1936, has been in charge of the Catholic Church and the Vatican City State since 2013. Since Gregory III, a Syrian who ruled in the eighth century, Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside of Europe.
