VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Wednesday urged the faithful to spend less on Christmas parties and gifts this year and send the difference to Ukrainians to help them overcome hunger and winter cold.
The pope, who has called for action on behalf of Ukraine at almost every public event since the Russian invasion in February, made this latest call at the end of his weekly general audience.
“There is so much suffering in Ukraine, so much suffering,” he said, adding that he wanted to draw attention to the particular issues that Ukrainians will face in the months ahead.
“It’s good to celebrate Christmas, to have parties (…) but let’s lower the level of Christmas expenses. Let’s make a more humble Christmas, with more humble gifts. Let’s send what we have saved to the Ukrainian people, who is in need, who suffers so much”, he added, arousing several rounds of applause in the courtroom, where he receives every Wednesday the faithful who wish to meet him.
The pope lamented the hunger and the cold that the population endures, as well as the deaths, “because there are no doctors, no nurses at hand”.
He spoke as millions of Ukrainian civilians face power, heat and water cuts in the middle of winter as a result of Russian attacks on infrastructure.
“Let’s not forget, a Christmas, yes, in peace with the Lord, yes, but with Ukrainians in our hearts. And let’s do this concrete gesture for them,” he said.
Pope Francis spoke on the same day that the national church of Ukrainians in Rome, Hagia Sophia, issued a new appeal to Italians to donate clothes and medicine. The latter have been transported by volunteers to Ukraine by whole trucks since March.
(Report Philip Pullella; French version Jean Rosset, edited by Augustin Turpin and Kate Entringer)