By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis in his Christmas message on Wednesday called for talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the war that followed Moscow’s full-scale invasion two years ago and has killed tens of thousands.
In his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, Francis mentioned the Ukraine conflict directly and called for “the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation”.
Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, the pope said: “May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine!” He also called for “gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace”.
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, was criticised by Ukrainian officials this year when he said the country should have the courage of the “white flag” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had previously ruled out engaging in peace talks without the restoration of Ukraine’s pre-war borders. But Zelenskiy has shown an increasing willingness in the weeks since Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. president to enter negotiations.
Earlier in December, Zelenskiy raised the idea of a diplomatic settlement that would involve a “freezing” of the current battle lines and the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine. Russia has demanded that Ukraine abandon its ambitions to join the NATO military alliance.
The 88-year-old Francis, celebrating the 12th Christmas of his pontificate, called for an end to conflicts, political, social or military, in places including Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
GAZA SITUATION ‘EXTREMELY GRAVE’
Francis, who has recently grown more critical of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, describing it last week as “cruelty”, also renewed his call for a ceasefire in the Israeli-Hamas war and for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
He called the humanitarian in Gaza “extremely grave” and asked for “the doors of dialogue and peace (to) be flung open”.
The Israeli-Hamas war began when Hamas-led Palestinian militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, which it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas, has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, said authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
Francis opened a Holy Year for the global Catholic Church on Tuesday evening, Christmas Eve, which will run through Jan. 6, 2026. A Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, is considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon.
On Wednesday, the pope said the Jubilee year should be a time for “every individual, and all peoples and nations … to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions”.
Francis also said it should be a time “to tear down all walls of separation”.
He called for a “mutually agreed solution” to bring down the border wall that has divided the Mediterranean island of Cyprus between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus since 1974.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, editing by Ed Osmond)
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