Pope Francis meets with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican on May 13, 2023, their first meeting since the start of the full-scale war with Russia. / Credit: Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 29, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis spoke by telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy three days after Christmas to discuss peace efforts to end the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, according to a video message Zelenskyy posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We discussed our joint work on the Peace Formula,” Zelenskyy said. “More than 80 states are already involved at the level of their representatives. There will be more. I am grateful to the Vatican for supporting our work.”
Zelenskyy said the pontiff expressed “his wishes of peace — just peace for all of us” during the Dec. 28 phone call.
The Ukrainian president also said he expressed gratitude to the pope “for his Christmas greetings to Ukraine and Ukrainians.”
On Christmas, Pope Francis delivered a Christmas blessing in which he said: “Saying ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace means saying ‘no’ to war, and this with courage: saying no to every war, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, madness without excuses.”
When speaking about Ukraine, the pope called for people to “renew our spiritual and human closeness to its embattled people, so that through the support of each of us, they may feel the concrete reality of God’s love.”
Pope Francis has met with Zelenskyy twice: once in 2020, before the Russian invasion, and again on May 13, more than a year after the February 2022 invasion. The pontiff has also spoken with the Ukrainian president several times over the phone. Francis has repeatedly urged a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict.
In May of last year, the pontiff said he also hoped to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, but there has not yet been a meeting. Francis had met with the Russian president prior to the invasion. In February 2022, the pope visited the Russian embassy to express his concerns about the invasion but did not speak with Putin.
Pope Francis had a video conference call with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, in March of last year. Although the two had met in person in 2016, they have not met in person since the start of the war, despite talk that there would be a second summit.
In Zelenskyy’s video message, the Ukrainian president also thanked the United States for the new military aid package to Ukraine.
“This package includes missiles for air defense systems and HIMARS, artillery of 155 and 105 caliber, and additional armored vehicles,” Zelenskyy said. “Everything we need. Everything that helps tangibly.”
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At his first general audience in St. Peter’s Square on May 21, 2025, Pope Leo XIV appeals for peace and the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, where, he said, children and elderly are suffering. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, May 21, 2025 / 08:05 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV in the first general audience of his pontificate on Wednesday appealed for an end to hostilities in Gaza and for the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
Speaking before tens of thousands of attendees on an overcast day in St. Peter’s Square, the new pope ended his remarks by calling the situation in the Gaza Strip “increasingly worrying and painful.”
“I renew my heartfelt appeal to allow the entry of decent humanitarian aid and to end the hostilities whose heartbreaking price is paid by children, the elderly, and the sick,” he added.
The pope’s appeal comes as the numbers of dead and injured in the Gaza Strip continue to rise under Israel’s attacks. According to reports, while some humanitarian aid has been allowed to enter Gaza, it has not yet been released for distribution.
One month to the day since Francis’ death, Pope Leo also recalled with gratitude the “beloved Pope Francis, who just a month ago returned to the house of the Father.”
Leo closely followed his written remarks, only adding the comment on Gaza, during the May 21 public audience, which he began by taking a turn around the square in the popemobile to cheers, banners, and waving flags. Some people stood on their chairs to try to catch a glimpse of the new pope, who paused often to bless babies of all ages held out to him in outstretched arms.
Pope Leo XIV pauses to bless a baby during his trip around St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile before the start of his first general audience on May 21, 2025. Credit: Vatican Media
The inaugural catechesis of the first U.S.-born pope picked up the theme begun by Francis for the 2025 Jubilee Year: “Jesus Christ our hope.”
Reflecting on the Parable of the Sower, Leo noted the unusual behavior of the sower in the story, who “does not care where the seed falls. He throws the seeds even where it is unlikely they will bear fruit: on the path, on the rocks, among the thorns.”
“The way in which this ‘wasteful’ sower throws the seed is an image of the way God loves us,” he said, echoing a part of his first message from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after his election on May 8, that God “loves us all unconditionally.”
“First and foremost in this parable Jesus tells us that God throws the seed of his Word on all kinds of soil, that is, in any situation of ours,” Leo underlined.
He continued: “God is confident and hopes that sooner or later the seed will blossom. This is how he loves us: he does not wait for us to become the best soil, but he always generously gives us his word. Perhaps by seeing that he trusts us, the desire to be better soil will be kindled in us. This is hope, founded on the rock of God’s generosity and mercy.”
The theme of personal transformation was also repeated later in the catechesis, when Leo said, “Jesus is the Word, he is the Seed. And the seed, to bear fruit, must die. Thus, this parable tells us that God is ready to ‘waste away’ for us and that Jesus is willing to die in order to transform our life.”
Chuma Asuzu, who is Nigerian-born and living in Canada, is happy to have attended Pope Leo XIV’s general audience on May 21, 2025 with his wife and children. Credit: Kristina Millare/CNA
Husband and father Chuma Asuzu from Canada came to the square early in the morning with his family to attend the pope’s first general audience.
“It was good and I think it was interesting how he explained the seeds and how it’s the word of God,” Asuzu shared with CNA. “I really appreciate it.”
“He made the point to drive around a lot because it was his first audience and he looked emotional at the beginning,” he added.
Instead of taking an example from literature or philosophy, as Pope Francis often did, Pope Leo used Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, “The Sower at Sunset,” to prompt a meditation on hope.
Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Sower at Sunset”. Public Domain.
“That image of the sower in the blazing sun also speaks to me of the farmer’s toil,” he said. “And it strikes me that, behind the sower, Van Gogh depicted the grain already ripe. It seems to me an image of hope: one way or another, the seed has borne fruit. We are not sure how, but it has.”
“At the center of the scene, however, is not the sower, who stands to the side; instead, the whole painting is dominated by the image of the sun, perhaps to remind us that it is God who moves history, even if he sometimes seems absent or distant,” the pope noted. “It is the sun that warms the clods of earth and makes the seed ripen.”
The pontiff’s final thought was to remind those present to ask the Lord for the grace to welcome the seed of his Word: “And if we realize we are not a fruitful soil, let us not be discouraged, but let us ask him to work on us more to make us become a better terrain.”
Leo closed the audience in the customary way, singing the “Our Father” prayer in Latin and then giving his apostolic blessing.
Among the pilgrims present on Wednesday was Father Rolmart Verano, who is leading a group of jubilee pilgrims from the Diocese of Surigao, Philippines.
“I never thought that one day I will come here [to Rome],” he told CNA. “It is one of my wildest dreams that came true!”
Father Rolmart Verano, from the Diocese of Surigao, Philippines, tells CNA at the general audience on May 21, 2025, that it was a dream come true for him to travel to Rome and see the pope. Credit: Kristina Millare/CNA
“The striking point of Pope Leo XIV’s general audience is when he said that the Word of God should take root in each one of our hearts,” he said. “It should serve as a guide for our daily lives no matter that it be ordinary or difficult circumstances.”
As one of 40 members of a pilgrim group from the Diocese of Mumbai, India, Sandesh Almeida said he was immediately impressed by the kindness shown by the new pontiff at the audience.
“Peace is a good message from him,” he said. “Now with India and Pakistan … we should go for peace and the pope is mostly focusing on peace.”
Roman Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paray-le-Monial and cloister. View from the Bourbince River, 2023. / Credit: Sanctuaire du Sacré-Cœur/www.sacrecoeur-paray.org
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