Every day, Aleteia offers a selection of articles written by the international press about the Church and the major issues that concern Catholics around the world. The opinions and views expressed in these articles are not those of the editors.
Friday 3 June 2022
1. Pope Francis should go to celebrate a mass at Ukrainian border
2. Hungary opposes sanctions against Patriarch Kirill
3. A young pilgrim makes Pope Francis laugh out loud
4. Letters from Pius XII to Hitler discovered
5. When Saint Francis of Assisi fascinated Spanish painters
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1Pope Francis should go to celebrate a mass at Ukrainian border
Alarmed by the consequences of the war in Ukraine, including a serious food crisis, the writer Giorgio Montefoschi laments that “diplomacy is at a standstill” in an opinion article in Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “Words are of little use” now, argues the writer, who comments on the attempts by the Pontiff to go to Moscow and Kyiv. “The Pope must go there, because a strong gesture is needed now, and only he can make that gesture,” Montefoschi said, pointing out that phone calls and other actions taken until now have not yielded anything. Just as St. Francis went to see Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade, the writer considers that the Pope should go to the heart of the war, to the demarcation line or to the no-man’s land between Ukraine and Russia. “There, on a simple altar, in the open, with no entourage, no oceanic crowds to cheer him on, he would celebrate Mass and, in his homily, ask Putin to stop the devastation,” the writer envisions. “One does not keep a Pope at the door,” the author emphasized in his concluding sentence.