ROME – In a new interview aired on Good Friday, Pope Francis spoke about an array of issues, including the war in Ukraine, saying he is pained by the conflict and asking God for the “gift of tears” in front of such staggering suffering.

He also spoke of the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, condemned violence against women, and criticized what he said is a “racist” attitude toward migrants fleeing global conflicts.

Asked what the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv represents for him now after 51 days of war, Pope Francis said the word that came to mind is “pain.”

“Pain is uncertainty, it’s a feeling that takes over. After surgery, when you feel the physical pain from the wound they’ve given you, you ask for anesthesia, for something to help you tolerate it. But [for] human pain, moral pain, there is no anesthesia. Only prayer and tears,” he said.

Francis voiced his conviction “that we are not weeping very well today,” because “we have forgotten how to weep.”

He urged faithful to ask, “for the gift of tears,” and the ability to weep like Peter did after denying Jesus. When Peter ran off, he said, “he wept when he denied him. He wept. A type of weeping that is not an outburst, no. It is physically-felt shame and, I believe we are lacking this shame.”

Pope Francis spoke during a nearly hour-long interview with Italian journalist Lorena Bianchetti, host of A Sua Immagine (In His Image), a religious affairs program broadcast on Italian state network Rai1.

It marked the pope’s first interview since the war in Ukraine began with Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, and was aired so the ending coincided with the hour of Jesus’ death on the cross – traditionally 3 p.m – on Good Friday.

Much of the interview centered on the Ukraine war, however, neither Ukraine nor Russia were directly mentioned by Pope Francis, who answered numerous questions about the war without naming specific parties.

With war raging not only in Ukraine, but throughout the globe, “the world has chosen the path of Cain and war is enacting what Cain did, that is, killing one’s brother,” he said.

Francis urged believers to make a special effort on Good Friday to let Jesus “touch your heart, let him speak to you with his silence, and with his pain. He speaks to you through those people who are suffering in the world: who suffer from hunger, suffer from war, suffer from such exploitation, and all these things.”

As he has often done in the past, the pope condemned the global arms trade, saying he understands government leaders who desire to purchase weapons, but “I do not justify them.”

“We have to defend ourselves, because [this is] the Cainist pattern of war. If there were a pattern of peace, this would not be necessary,” he said. “But we live with this diabolic pattern of killing one another out of the desire for power, the desire for security.”

Pointing to different wars raging throughout the world, including those in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, Francis said “We have forgotten the language of peace – we have forgotten it. We speak about peace. The United Nations has done everything possible, but they have not succeeded.”

He also criticized the mentality often applied to the global migration crisis, saying, “Refugees are subdivided.”

“There’s first class, second class, skin color, [if] they come from a developed country [or] one that is not developed. We are racists, we are racists. And this is bad,” he said, insisting that the refugee issue is one that Jesus also faced, “because he was a migrant and a refugee in Egypt when he was a child to escape death.”

“How many of them are suffering to escape death!” he said, saying Jesus offered himself on the cross for everyone.

“On the cross, there are people from the countries of Africa at war, of the Middle East at war, of Latin America at war, of Asia at war… War is growing with the lives of our children, of our young people. This is why I am saying that war is a monstrosity!” he said.

Pope Francis also condemned violence against women. “The exploitation of women is our daily bread,” he said and lamented the many women who are beaten or who endure violence from their partners, but who often do this “in silence.”

“Women are humanity’s reserves. I am convinced of this. Women are the strength,” he said, noting that at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified, “the disciples fled, the women no, the women who had followed him their whole life.”

Asked about the role of women in negotiating conflict, including the Ukraine war, the pope said women often stand “at the crossroads of the greatest fatalities, they are there, they are strong.”

“To give woman a role in difficult moments, in tragic moments – is so important, so important. They know what life is, what it is to prepare for life and to prepare for death, they know well. They speak that language,” he said.

Pope Francis closed the interview saying his hope for this year’s Easter season is that there be “an internal joy.”

“From weeping to joy. It is joy. My hope is that we not lose hope, but true hope – the one that does not disappoint – and that we ask for the grace of tears, but the tears of joy, the tears of consolation, the tears of hope,” he said.

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