Pope urges world to shed apathy towards ‘piecemeal WWIII’

Pope Francis said on Saturday the spate of conflicts around the globe today were effectively a “piecemeal” Third World War, condemning the arms trade and “plotters of terrorism” sowing death and destruction. He urged the world to shed its apathy, intoning “war is madness” at the foot of a grandiose monument to soldiers killed in World War I. Standing at an altar beneath the towering Redipuglia memorial entombing 100,000 Italian soldiers fallen in World War I, the pontiff delivered a Mass for those who died in the Great War that broke out 100 years ago.

Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis lamented that the human toll of “senseless massacres” and “mindless wars” has been met with apathy. The visit was also infused with intensely personal meaning. The pope’s grandfather fought in Italy’s 1915-17 offensive against the Austro-Hungarian empire waged in the nearby battlefields, surviving to impress upon the future pope the horror of war.

Humanity needs to weep and this is the time to weep.

Pope Francis

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