“I want to assure you of my prayers for dear Ukraine, for all its Churches and religious communities, and for all its people so that the tensions it is experiencing might be resolved through a serious international dialogue and not with weapons,” Pope Francis said on December 12, following his Angelus address.

“A statistic I read recently saddens me greatly: more weapons were produced this year than last year,” the Pope added. “Weapons are not the right path. May the Lord’s Birth bring peace to Ukraine.”