Pope Francis Says Papal Visit to Ukraine’s Capital, Kyiv, is “on the table”

Among the refugees was a mother of two children, aged five and seven. She came to Italy for a heart surgery for her daughter, according to the Vatican on April 2.

The pope met the group at the Casa Santa Marta, his residence in Vatican City, along with the papal almoner Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who has served as a papal envoy to Ukraine.

In his speech to civil authorities in Malta on Saturday, the pope continued to condemn the violence in Ukraine, calling for “human moderation before the infantile and destructive aggression that threatens us, before the risk of an enlarged Cold War that can stifle the life of entire peoples and generations.”

“This childishness, sadly, has not disappeared. It has reemerged powerfully in the seductions of autocracy, new forms of imperialism, widespread aggressiveness, and the inability to build bridges and start from the poorest in our midst,” he said.

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“Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared, or not be at all,” he said.

“Now in the night of the war that is fallen upon humanity, please let us not allow the dream of peace to fade.”

Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.