Pope Francis reflected at the beginning of the Jubilee of Hope: “Is it too much to dream that weapons may fall silent and cease to bring destruction and death? May the commitment of diplomacy not fail in building, with courage and creativity, spaces for negotiation aimed at a lasting peace.” It is not too much to dream of peace! We should say instead: it is the minimum, because it is necessary to find solutions to every conflict through dialogue and in appropriate forums. We know well that dialogue is not easy, especially after so much destruction and death, starting with every single person who has lost their life in the flood of death that is war. A man killed is the whole world that dies. War, in fact, affects everyone, because we are brothers and sisters, and if I strike my brother, I am in reality striking a part of myself. I strongly embrace the words of Pope Leo XIV: “How many victims, how many lives and families shattered, how much destruction, how much unspeakable suffering! Truly every war is a wound inflicted upon the entire human family: it leaves behind death, devastation, and a trail of pain that marks generations. Peace cannot be postponed: it is an urgent need, which must find space in hearts and be translated into responsible decisions. For this reason, I strongly renew my appeal: let the weapons fall silent, let the bombings cease, let a ceasefire be reached without delay, and let dialogue be strengthened to open the path to peace.” The world is a mosaic which, if left in disorder, does not show the beauty that only thinking of ourselves together can reveal. Peace begins from the ground up. If multilateralism is weak; if, dangerously, the diplomacy of dialogue has been replaced by the diplomacy of force by individuals or groups of allies; if war has come back into fashion and a fervor for conflict is spreading; if we are too little convinced that peace and justice still belong together, then this means that all humanity is in danger.

Excerpt from the homily delivered by Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi at Santa Maria in Trastevere on the occasion of the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Ukraine on February 25, 2026.