Today is the beginning of the month dedicated to the Mother of God. I would like to invite all the faithful and communities to pray the Rosary for peace every day in May. My thought goes to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, “Mary’s city”, barbarically bombed and destroyed. Once again, from here, I renew my request that safe humanitarian corridors be arranged for the people trapped in the steelworks in that city. I suffer and weep, thinking of the sufferings of the Ukrainian people, and in particular, the weakest, the elderly and children. There are even terrible reports of children being expelled and deported.

And while we are witnessing a macabre regression of humanity, I wonder, along with so many anguished people, if peace is truly being sought; whether there is the will to avoid a continued military and verbal escalation; whether everything possible is being done to silence the weapons. I beg you, let us not surrender to the logic of violence, to the perverse spiral of weapons. May the path of dialogue and peace be taken! Let us pray [...]

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