Pope Francis appeared to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country's invasion of Ukraine in his Easter message to the world on Sunday and appealed for dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians following recent violence.
Francis, 86, presided at a solemn Easter day Mass in a sunny St. Peter's Square after unseasonal cold forced him to skip an outdoor service on Friday — a precaution following his hospitalisation for bronchitis at the end of March.
There, from the same spot where he first appeared to the world as pope on the night of his election in 2013, he spoke of "the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped", and prayed to God for peace. On Sunday he asked God to "comfort the wounded and all those who have lost loved ones because of the war, and grant that prisoners may return safe and sound to their families. Open the hearts of the entire international community to strive to end this war and all conflict and bloodshed in our world."
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have sharply increased since Israeli police raids last week on Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, which caused outrage across the Arab world.
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