The following are the words spoken yesterday afternoon by the Holy Father Francis in the New Synod Hall at the end of the screening of the documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom”, promoted by the director Evgeny Afineevsky, in the presence of about 250 guests including the needy, refugees and members of the Ukrainian community in Rome, accompanied by His Eminence Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, Almoner of His Holiness, and representatives of voluntary associations:

Impromptu words of the Holy Father

When God made man, he said to take the earth, make it grow, make it beautiful. The spirit of war is the opposite: to destroy, to destroy, not to let grow, to destroy everyone, men women, children, the elderly, everyone.

Today marks one year of this war. Let us look at Ukraine, let us pray for Ukraine and open our hearts to sorrow. Let us not be ashamed to suffer and weep, for a war is destruction, a war always diminishes us. May God make us understand this.

Let us pray.