Pope's World Peace Event
On VATICAN news : Pope Francis pledged on Monday with Zelenski to do "everything possible to stop the war" as spiritual leader has opted for a gesture of enormous weight in the Catholic tradition to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the immaculate heart of the Virgin Mary.
During yesterday's ceremony he clarified that naturally " it is not a magic formula, but a spiritual act ", which he compared to what little children do " that when they are frightened they go crying to their mother for help " . "In these days news and images of death continue to enter our homes, while bombs destroy the homes of so many defenseless Ukrainian brothers and sisters".
With a prayer before some three thousand pilgrims in St. Peter's Basilica and followed by many more from the square, the Bishop of Rome yesterday symbolically called for the Port of Heaven.
To show the gravity of the situation, he would have mobilized his nuncios and got all the bishops of the world to unite spiritually to this prayer for "World Peace". In the Eternal City, of long memory, no other pontiff has ever called for such a convocation.
At the same time, Francis had sent a personal representative to the Fatima shrine in Portugal, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to make this consecration on his behalf.
In this way, he linked with one of the requests of Our Lady of Fatima during the apparitions of 1917 to the three little shepherds: "If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and will have; if not, it will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church," he assured them.
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