Pope Francis Says His Thoughts Are with War-torn Ukraine on Feast of the Holy Cross

Pope Francis urged that the “only way to arrive at peace is through dialogue,” a theme he has returned to in many of his speeches at the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan this week. 

The pope also expressed concern over a new flare of tensions in the Caucasus region and asked people to pray that peace will prevail in the disputed territories. 

“May the world learn to build peace by limiting the arms race and converting the enormous sums spent on war into concrete assistance to peoples,” he said. 

In his homily for the Mass, Pope Francis explained that the Catholic Church’s annual feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates how “Jesus took upon himself all our sin and the evil of our world and vanquished them by his love.”

Roman Catholic bishops in Ukraine declared 2022 to be the Year of the Holy Cross. And the European bishops’ council has called for “Eucharistic adoration in every church in Europe” to pray for peace in Ukraine on the feast.

“The outstretched arms of Jesus are the embrace of tender love with which God wishes to embrace us.”

Kazakhstan is a majority-Muslim country home to an ethnically diverse minority of Catholics — an estimated 250,000 in total. Most of Kazakhstan’s Catholics are Latin-rite, but there is also an Eastern-rite minority of approximately 3,000 people. St. John Paul II visited the country in 2001 to an enthusiastic welcome.

Pope Francis arrived at the expo grounds in a pickup truck popemobile, waving at the cheering crowd of several thousand.

He called on the crowd to remember that being a Christian means “living without venom: not biting one another, not complaining, blaming and backbiting, not disseminating evil, not polluting the earth with the sin and distrust that comes from the evil one.”

Pope Francis arriving at the outdoor Mass in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 14. 2022. Rudolf Gehrig / CNA