Pope Francis has issued a new plea against all wars as he evoked the horror of the mass killing of Jews and other victims of the Nazis ahead of Saturday's Holocaust Memorial Day.
Pope Francis reacts on the day of the weekly general audience, in Paul VI hall at the Vatican, January 24, 2024. Reuters/Claudia Greco
Pope Francis has issued a new plea against all wars as he evoked the horror of the mass killing of Jews and other victims of the Nazis ahead of Saturday's Holocaust Memorial Day.
"The memory and condemnation of that horrible extermination of millions of people...may help everybody to not forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified," he said during his Wednesday weekly audience.
"Let us not get tired of praying for peace, for conflicts to end, for weapons to stop, for relief for exhausted populations," Francis added.
The leader of the world's more than 1.35 billion Roman Catholics mentioned the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the bombing of civilians in "martyred Ukraine".
He repeated his assertion that "war is always a defeat" in which "the only winners, so to speak, are weapons manufacturers".
Reporting by Alvise Armellini
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistan is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets well beyond South Asia, making it an "emerging threat" to the United States.
A Russian missile strike killed at least one person and damaged buildings across the Ukrainian capital during the morning rush hour on Friday, city officials said.
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